Photographing the Perseids Meteor Shower in the SF Bay Area

California Milky Way with the Perseids Meteor Shower | Sony Alpha a7R II + 20mm f/1.8 G @ f/1.8, ISO 1250, 10 sec x 51

The peak of the Perseids Meteor Shower was a few weeks ago, and I spent a night photographing it alongside the milky way. To photograph a meteor shower, you need to be in a dark sky location without much light pollution or moon light. While the Perseids Meteor Shower occurs annually, it is not every year that the peak coincides with a dimly lit moon phase. This year, the moon phase was at 8% on the night of the peak, and the moon did not start rising until partway into the night. With this in mind, I was excited to see the meteor shower.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, a pretty populus area with a lot of light pollution. Additionally, I did not give myself much time in advance to plan, so I was looking for places to photograph the night sky close to home. Many of these places are along the coast where you can look out towards the Pacific Ocean; however, the weather forecast showed the marine layer covering the coastal areas. I ended up deciding on a location in the Santa Cruz Mountains where I could be above the fog which would mask out the light pollution from below and have some clear skies above. In fact, this is the same place is visited in 2021 where I documented photographing the milky way. With August colloquially known as Fogust around here, I was hoping that there would be more fog/marine layer to block out the light pollution compared to the last time I visited in October.

The other consideration to think about when planning for the Perseids Meteor Shower is the direction that you want to photograph. The radiant of a meteor shower is the location of the sky where it appears that the meteors are coming from. The Perseids Meteor Shower’s radiant is the Perseus constellation which rises in the northeast part of the sky; however, this does not mean that you will only see meteors in that direction. As the radiant rises higher in the sky, you can also see meteors in other directions. Considering the amount of light pollution at my shooting location, I decided that I would point my camera southwest towards the darkest part of the sky which is also the direction of the milky way core. And from a compositional perspective, I think including the milky way core as the main subject in the photo is really nice.

Epic California Sunset Clouds | Sony Alpha a7R II + 20mm f/1.8 G @ f/6.3, ISO 100, 1/25 sec

After a day of work on Friday, I headed up to the location with my parents. I enjoyed a nice dinner while waiting for the sunset. I was a little concerned since the sky was covered in a bank of low clouds when we arrived even though all the weather forecasts showed we would have clear skies by night. Regardless, I set up my camera at sunset, and we were treated with a very colorful sunset as we were pretty close to the edge of the bank of clouds. As the sun set and gave way to the stars, the clouds disappeared, and the fog rolled inland. This was the setting that I had imagined when planning the location.

As for the photography, it was pretty straightforward. I just set up my camera in time-lapse mode so that it could take photos continuously throughout the night. Even though I stayed up throughout the night and powered my camera externally so it would not run out of battery, I did not shoot the whole night after realizing that I used up a lot of space on my memory card shooting the time-lapse at sunset. I started taking photos after midnight when the milky way was left of center in my composition so that it would move into the center of the frame later in the night. After I set up my camera to run automatically, I spent the night looking up and trying to spot the meteors streak across the sky. It was pretty exciting every time I saw one, and there were a handful of really bright ones as well.

For editing my photo, I stacked 51 photos for a total exposure time of 8 minutes and 30 seconds to improve the signal to noise ratio. Additionally, rotated and aligned the photos I captured of the meteors relative to the stars they were positioned next to. This made for an interesting observation where it appears that all the meteors are converging to just below the milky way core near the horizon. This is different than if I was facing towards the radiant, in which we would expect the meteors to converge to a single point in the sky.

Overall, I am grateful for this experience and happy with the photo I came away with. I did not see as many meteors as predicted. This is probably because of the ambient brightness from the nearby light pollution and considering that we were facing away from the radiant. Furthermore, I’m sure I would have seen more meteors if I went on the night of the peak, but we went on the night before as that was the only day we could be at the location. Still, this was still the greatest number of meteors I have seen. In 2018, I visited Pinnacles National Park during the Perseids Meteor Shower, but we had to leave early since we had to drive home and go to work the next day. In 2021, I visited Alabama Hills to see the Gemini Meteor Shower, but it was cloudy, so I had to settle for seeing the meteor shower a couple nights before the peak. So, while my photo composition might not have been as creative as the ones from those other trips, I was happy to see that the planning and weather worked out better this time. And I hope to keep you updated on my next meteor shower adventure!