The rules* say they gotta fall in my/our** favor eventually, right? Because it’s getting to be about time to do so…***
The Perseids meteor shower is predicted to peak the night of August 12th and morning of the 13th, precise time about 03:00 UTC on the 13th, which places it as 11 PM on the 12th for those of us on the east coast of the US. ‘Peak’ is often a very broad term in meteorology, uh, meteoronomy, shootingstaragy, whatever – activity may be very strong or barely any noticeable difference during such showers, and may last from a half hour to a few days, and may not even be all that close to that time. On average, more meteors are visible at peak times – usually, often enough, though it only takes a couple of more meteors to skew an average in this manner. Math isn’t going to help us out much here.
What may help us out significantly is that there will be no moon in the sky at all during the night – in fact, it will be eclipsing the sun over in Europe not long before. Also, this peak time (for EDT timezone anyway) falls right before meteors tend to become more visible, which is after midnight. S’okay, the Earth rotates, right? And it also trundles in a big circle around the Sun, in a plane that largely coincides with the rotation. This means that, every day, any point on Earth is either facing into the wind of its orbit, turning against the orbital motion, or falling behind and thus moving in accordance with this motion. Since meteor showers come from passing through a trail of debris left behind by comets as they orbited the sun in their own manner, ‘facing into the wind’ means the path of the Earth and the rotation double up to increase the speed of intersecting dust, making meteors brighter and more frequent, but shorter. At any local midnight, the point on Earth where we stand starts ‘facing into the wind,’ so meteors increase, though we may not be in the thickest part of the debris trail just then. Conversely, before that time, meteors may be much fewer, but also last longer since their speed is slower relative to the Earth.
The debris trail is large enough that the shower may last several days, so whatever clear night you have surrounding that date, go for it. At least this one is during the summer for the northern hemisphere, so you shouldn’t have to bundle up, unlike far too many of the other showers.
Where to look? Seriously, any place the sky is dark enough – it’s a debris trail, it’s scattered and messy, so meteors might appear anywhere in the sky, but your better bet is someplace where other light is minimal and thus you can see more of the dimmer ones.
Now, the radiant is between the constellations Perseus and Camelopardis, just south of Cassiopeia, which at peak time will be medium low to the northeast for mid-latitudes US – lower for southerners, higher for northerners. But the radiant is another average thingy – it means that, if you traced all the trails of the meteors you see during a shower, they would favor lines that point towards the radiant – indeed, that’s about where the bulk of the debris trail lies. That doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily see more if you look there, only that most of the paths converge there – you might see them anywhere (well, in the sky at least,) and the slower ones more away from that point, so again, wherever you have the best visibility.
How to photograph them? Well, you’re asking the wrong guy, because my luck has been abysmal in this regard – up until this storm, right? Anyway, camera on tripod, focus on infinity (I often use the lights on radio towers to focus on when they’re available, since they’re bright enough and far enough away.) Turn autofocus off so it doesn’t keep trying to focus on those dark skies every time you trip the shutter. A remote release is recommended, and an intervalometer can help automate the shutter releases so you don’t have to do it manually. Shutter speed and aperture are going to be guided by the light in the sky, so test exposures are in order. The longer the shutter is open, the more chance you have of capturing a meteor, but also, the more residual light is admitted, brightening the sky, and the longer the star trails will become, making meteors harder to see. So start with ISO 400 or 800 (too high produces noise, especially in long exposures,) f5.6 to f8, 20 seconds shutter speed. Take a look at the resulting exposure – you should have plenty of stars visible but the background should not be very bright. Note, too, the closer you aim towards the North Star/Polaris, the shorter your star trails will be, and the longer your exposure before they get too streaky. Adjust as needed.
The more sky you can see, the better, but bear in mind, the shorter the focal length (the wider the view,) the shorter and less-noticeable the meteor trails become. I’d suggest 18-50mm (or equivalent.) Having a foreground interest makes for much better images, so pick a lake, find that dark old house or tree, that mountain peak – try for what would be scenic in daytime. You have a few days to think about this or scout locations, especially to see how dark it gets at night. Also, aiming away from commercial airline paths is much better, but these taper off seriously after 10-11 PM locally, in most locations (we sit directly under a major N/S route here, so I’m always ending exposures before aircraft enter the frame – red and white lines add absolutely nothing to the image.)
Don’t chase them. You may see a meteor or two in a particular direction, which is not where you’d aimed or the darkest sky. This doesn’t mean this is the spot to see them – they occur everywhere. Just be consistent, since the more time you’re adjusting the camera, the more time you’re not photographing. Believe me, you’re fairly likely to see one blaze outside the field of view of the camera, because the field of view is fairly small no matter what. This is the primary frustration of meteor storms: if you see nothing, well, bad night, but if you miss one, you’re more annoyed. It can happen easily, and there’s no good way to combat it except having a lot more cameras running simultaneously – which isn’t a bad idea, but it means more attending to them and less sky-watching. Better to at least witness that spectacular meteor.
Also, I’ve done a page explaining how to edit out the sensor noise from long exposures, those persistent pixels that occur because of small imperfections of the camera. This doesn’t remove all noise, but it gets those bright annoying pixels out of there.
So, good luck with it, should you decide to try your hand. As always, my brilliant successes will be available here.
* There are no ‘rules’ of averages, just statistics.
** You may have been having far better luck than I.
*** See asterisk one – there is no ‘due.’ Also, witnessing over 300 the night of the 2001 Leonids may have completely fucked my own personal averages, and I’m not due for any more…