Leonid 2009 from Lonavala - Nov 17-18

The Most awaited Meteor SHOWer of the year "Leonids" was here !!!

We decided to avoid Suburban light pollution and go somewhere dark sky location. Our Old-Time friends Girish & Swapnil invited us to join them at Lonavala at their place; which we readily accepted.

Me along with my wife & our friend Ganesh Kale left from Thane by 17th evening. And were joined by Nilesh Desai & his wife at lonavala ST stand. From there we moved to our observing place. we reached there by 11:00 PM.

The Sky condition were not good at that time its was clouded with lot of moving clouds. The Sky as we can see from open patches was very good though.

We spend some time inside waiting for clouds to clear. around 1 AM its started to clear out. We started setting up our photography setups. By the time we were ready the Sky was completely clear & we were already seeing some meteors here and there.

I had Canon XTi with 18-55 lens setup at 18mm to cover max possible field. I decided not to guide but keep camera stationary on Tripod. Took many photos of 2min & 3min exposure times.

As usual Meteors always fall in the portion of the Sky where my Camera is not pointing !!!

Some 4-5 Meteors fall just outside of my Camera Frame Area !!!

And one actaully passed through exactly center of my Camera Framed Sky !!!

But ahhh !!!!

That was the time my Camera taking break of 7 secs between two consecutive shots !!!!

And finally I caught One, Not a Big one, but I have something to show at least !!!

But my happiness did not last even for a minute !!! within next 1 min another Dazzling Fireball passed from my Frame !!!

it was almost -6 or -7 magnitude. Blazing with green / orange color, trailed almost 15-20 degrees across sky & its Smoke-Trail lasted for 15-20 secs !!!

But...

but it started from the point in my Frame portion of Sky and moved OUT !!!! :(

I captured just initial 1/4th trail and the blazzing show was outside of my Frame Area !!!

Here is the Pics... [Click on Image to open Large Size in order to meteors clearly.]



here is the link to tagged photo where I marked meteors on Photo...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thakursam/4116156019/

Hope next time I get better images (With Meteors :P )

Have a Clear Sky Always
Sameer