They came in big white clumps from the sky:
Even astronomers are not free of hype
On the positive side, the slim chance to catch something special motivated me to spend another night under a nice sky. When I spent the last night on my stargazing location I was not expecting much. The expected time of the meteor storm was well after sunrise, so the only event I could remotely hope for was a prelude to it. Obviously stacking assumptions - there is a meteor storm and it will have a prelude - is not a success strategy. I went for it anyway and enjoyed another cloud, satellite and plane spotting session. I even managed to capture 8 (!) Herculide meteors over a time span of 6 hours. I was rewarded with a nice sunrise. For someone living in the centre of a big city the experience of nature awakening with chirping birds as soon as dawn is setting in is priceless.
My main message of this post, despite some quirky humor, is that this hobby is so much more enjoyable if you focus on the experience instead of the results. I'm optimistic at some point the results will pop in automatically if you manage to keep the spirit.
We are focusing a lot on technical topics, gear, image processing and perfect stars. Maybe on occasion we should take a step back and ask us what we really enjoy and what keeps us going. I'd like to motivate you to spend time under the beautiful dark sky even when conditions are not optimal. Just looking at the various constellations and acquiring (or refreshing) knowledge about the universe around us is a lot of fun and to me there is always some spiritual aspect to it.
I would be pleased to hear what inspires you and how you manage to keep your motivation.
Clear skies
Wolfgang
Even astronomers are not free of hype
On the positive side, the slim chance to catch something special motivated me to spend another night under a nice sky. When I spent the last night on my stargazing location I was not expecting much. The expected time of the meteor storm was well after sunrise, so the only event I could remotely hope for was a prelude to it. Obviously stacking assumptions - there is a meteor storm and it will have a prelude - is not a success strategy. I went for it anyway and enjoyed another cloud, satellite and plane spotting session. I even managed to capture 8 (!) Herculide meteors over a time span of 6 hours. I was rewarded with a nice sunrise. For someone living in the centre of a big city the experience of nature awakening with chirping birds as soon as dawn is setting in is priceless.
My main message of this post, despite some quirky humor, is that this hobby is so much more enjoyable if you focus on the experience instead of the results. I'm optimistic at some point the results will pop in automatically if you manage to keep the spirit.
We are focusing a lot on technical topics, gear, image processing and perfect stars. Maybe on occasion we should take a step back and ask us what we really enjoy and what keeps us going. I'd like to motivate you to spend time under the beautiful dark sky even when conditions are not optimal. Just looking at the various constellations and acquiring (or refreshing) knowledge about the universe around us is a lot of fun and to me there is always some spiritual aspect to it.
I would be pleased to hear what inspires you and how you manage to keep your motivation.
Clear skies
Wolfgang
