Perseid Meteor Shower 2016 from South Dublin and Enniskerry

You might have heard that 2016 Perseid Meteor Shower was supposed to be special and very rich with visible meteors. Knowing that I decided to go out and make a couple of great photos.

Even though clouds didn’t look too friendly I persisted and drove to the top of Ticknock Hill. In pitch dark, I found a decent spot to position my camera, and I took my first photo.

In short 10 minutes I’ve managed to make four photos (Yes, 4) and that was it, clouds completely covered the sky and light rain forced me back to the car.

I had a backup location, and I drove there, some ten kilometres towards east. When I parked there, it looked like I found a great location, since I had relativity clear night sky above me.

Since I don’t have adequate (wide or fish lens) equipment, I can’t cover a great part of the sky so I had to choose one side only. I selected a view toward east, and it seemed that it’s not really the best one since it’s just under the airport landing route. Because of that my photos are polluted with airplane traces, but in the upper right corner you can see one meteor passing by.

While I was looking at the sky I’ve noticed a couple of meteors more towards west, so I’ve rotated my camera, started exposition, I think I even had one meteor there when local police decided to stop and ask what am I doing there in pitch black. As it usually goes, they stopped the car in such manner that their lights beamed into the camera, and that photo was successfully ruined.

Then, I decided to ruin another one myself, since it was obviously not the best night for photography. 🙂

I’ve managed to catch another one shooting from this angle, but I’ve again noticed meteors passing everywhere else but there where I’m pointing my camera at.

So I turned my camera to another angle, where at least I got a photo with nice tree shadows. As usual, meteor passed almost outside of my camera view so you can see it totally on the left side of the photo.

After a couple of hours of more or less unsuccessful, but still eventful, photo evening, I’ve decided to create my own meteor pass by, and that one was large and bright. 😀

With only three caught meteors I’ll say that 2016 meteor shower in Ireland was a disaster, at least for me.

Next year, I’ll go and camp somewhere in the mountains, preferably with wider lens in my bag. 🙂

Cheers,

Balky