Photo: Shooting Stars by Tony Coombes

Of the 2020 Perseid meteor shower,  The Royal Museums of Greenwich, said ‘The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most dramatic things to see in the night sky between July and August.’ And of course, photographers jumped at the chance of the next great challenge!

To give us some hope of success, Club Member Jason Hyde shared his detailed notes on capturing shooting stars (which OPC Club Members can find in the Members Area of this website) and Tony Coombes took up the gauntlet.

Tony’s Experiment

Tony, more known for shooting underwater scenes, dried off his gear, set up his tripod and aimed for the stars.

Of his first ten-minute session, he made the image seen here.

“I didn’t have any joy with trying long exposures,” Tony said, “but had a go with the star shot programme on my compact camera and it has caught a couple of streaks in the sky. Could this be a ‘shooting star’?”

No joy was to be had during a further 30-minute session, which he said ‘showed nothing’.

Another great experiment though and lessons learned for sure, which – I think we’ll all agree – is what it’s all about.