Uploaded August 2013 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This year's Perseid Meteor Shower peaked on the morning of August 12, 2013, and I placed a Canon 5D Mk2 with Tokina 10mm fisheye lens outside all night to record the show. I shot over 2500 12-second exposure images, which are played back at 30fps for an 84-second view of nearly the entire sky.
Filming at night from a small city isn't so great - there was lots of light pollution, some haze, and even though I used a pretty high ISO of 3200, most of the meteors are too small, quick, and faint to see very well. After examining the entire sequence, frame-by-frame, I found about 140 meteors, but most of them very small and unfortunately, the reduced resolution and YouTube recompression, even at 1080p HD, will no doubt make most of them invisible in this video. Still, it's an interesting view, and a LOT easier on the neck than staring upwards all night just to see a few in person! Besides meteors, there are plenty of aircraft and satellites flying by in this video too, so there's lots to see.
Be sure and watch using full HD in a dark room for best results. Most of the larger, brighter meteors occur closer to dawn. In time-lapse sequences, satellites and aircraft can be distinguished from meteors as they appear in multiple frames and seem to move across the sky. Meteors just flash very quickly in one spot (with no apparent movement) since they only appear in one frame.
The soundtrack is "Oberion" from the "Silicon Landscape" CD by Technician (yours truly), album and single track available on iTunes at itunes.apple.com/us/album/silicon-landscape/id416814074 Full artist discography, CDs, and MP3 downloads available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com
Note: This is copyrighted material, however, you may download this footage and audio directly from YouTube and use it free of charge in your own non-profit/non-commercial YouTube videos, school projects, etc. The full free usage policy with copyright notice/claim and partner ad info can be found here:
jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#freeusage and
jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#partner
(please read both sections before using JCMDI material - Thanks!)
This year's Perseid Meteor Shower peaked on the morning of August 12, 2013, and I placed a Canon 5D Mk2 with Tokina 10mm fisheye lens outside all night to record the show. I shot over 2500 12-second exposure images, which are played back at 30fps for an 84-second view of nearly the entire sky.
Filming at night from a small city isn't so great - there was lots of light pollution, some haze, and even though I used a pretty high ISO of 3200, most of the meteors are too small, quick, and faint to see very well. After examining the entire sequence, frame-by-frame, I found about 140 meteors, but most of them very small and unfortunately, the reduced resolution and YouTube recompression, even at 1080p HD, will no doubt make most of them invisible in this video. Still, it's an interesting view, and a LOT easier on the neck than staring upwards all night just to see a few in person! Besides meteors, there are plenty of aircraft and satellites flying by in this video too, so there's lots to see.
Be sure and watch using full HD in a dark room for best results. Most of the larger, brighter meteors occur closer to dawn. In time-lapse sequences, satellites and aircraft can be distinguished from meteors as they appear in multiple frames and seem to move across the sky. Meteors just flash very quickly in one spot (with no apparent movement) since they only appear in one frame.
The soundtrack is "Oberion" from the "Silicon Landscape" CD by Technician (yours truly), album and single track available on iTunes at itunes.apple.com/us/album/silicon-landscape/id416814074 Full artist discography, CDs, and MP3 downloads available at HTTP://technician.jcmdi.com
Note: This is copyrighted material, however, you may download this footage and audio directly from YouTube and use it free of charge in your own non-profit/non-commercial YouTube videos, school projects, etc. The full free usage policy with copyright notice/claim and partner ad info can be found here:
jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#freeusage and
jcmdi.com/stockfootage/faq.html#partner
(please read both sections before using JCMDI material - Thanks!)
