Perseid Trio Down the Milky Way

A trio of Perseid meteors streaking from left to right away from the radiant point in Perseus off frame at left, and down the summer Milky Way in Cygnus and Lyra. The meteors display the characteristic transition from green to red along their ionization path. The framing includes the Summer Triangle stars, Deneb, Vega and Altair. This is stack of three images selected from a set of 190 taken over 3 hours on August 13, 2023. Each is a 1-minute exposure at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 28mm and Canon Ra at ISO 1600, on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. No filters employed. A mild Soft Focus effect added in post with Nik Collection Color Effects.

Perseids Panorama from Dinosaur Park

This is a panorama of the ground and sky framing the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, in the Red Deer River valley in Alberta, with the summer sky above filled with three dozen meteors from the annual Perseid meteor shower, of August 12, 2023. The meteors all appear to be streaking away from the radiant point in Perseus at far left. The location is the upper viewpoint near the Park Entrance, and looking northeast to southeast. The lights in the valley below are from the campground and service centre. The one glaring sodium vapour light should be removed or at least shielded. The brightest horizon glow at right is from Medicine Hat. Some bands of green and red airglow tint the sky naturally. The meteor trails nicely demonstrate the green to red transition in their colours as they descend into the atmosphere and burn up. Tech Data — This is a blend of two panoramas: a panorama of two untracked segments for the ground taken in blue hour before the sky got dark, blended with a base panorama of two segments for the sky taken later with the sky darker, and with the sky segments and meteors taken with the cameras tracking the sky.. Onto the base sky panorama I layered some 32 images containing most of the meteors. The sky segments and meteors were taken with two cameras operating simultaneously, each Canon EOS R cameras, and each with 15mm lenses: the Canon RF 15-35mm and the Venus Optics Laowa 15mm, both at f/2.8 and for 1-minute exposures at ISO 1600, all tracked, one on the Star Adventurer 2i and one on the Star Adventurer Mini trackers. Differences in optical quality between the lenses does spoil the panorama blend — this was an experiment! It sort of worked! Lens distortions required cutting off more of the image at left and right than I had anticipated. And placing the meteors took a lot more manual alignment than planned, despite all being taken on trackers, so the location of the meteors can only be taken as "representative," not accurate! I have exercised a great deal of artistic license that I hope will not be revoked! I shot a total of 250 images wth each of the two cameras, over 4h15m, from 10:45 pm to 3 am. The 500 images netted about 3 dozen meteors, with some being captured on both cameras with their overlapping fields. I didn't include the same meteor twice. Of course, the brightest meteor of the night got cut off at the edge of one frame, at left. This was August 12, 2023, on a night with near perfect conditions - warm, dry, clear, no smoke and few bugs! About 6 other cars came and went at the viewpoint, but none stayed long and the last was gone by 1 am.

Perseids over Dinosaur Park (August 12, 2023)

This is the Perseid meteor shower over the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, in the Red Deer River valley in Alberta, with the summer sky above filled with about two dozen meteors from the annual shower on August 12, 2023. The meteors all appear to be streaking away from the radiant point in Perseus at left, below the "W" of Cassiopeia. The meteor trails are shortest near the radiant point, as at that location they are coming at us head on. The Andromeda Galaxy is near centre. The location is the upper viewpoint near the Park Entrance, and looking northeast. The lights in the valley below are from the campground and service centre. Some bands of green and red airglow tint the sky. Most of the meteor trails nicely demonstrate the green to red transition in their colours as they descend into the atmosphere and burn up. A couple do look white, and might be flaring satellites mimicking meteors? Locations of the meteors are accurate. Tech Data — This is a blend of an untracked image for the ground taken in blue hour before the sky got dark, blended with a tracked base image for the sky taken later with the sky darker, onto which are layered the two dozen images of the meteors all aligned to the base sky layer and with all the sky images taken with the camera tracking the sky. Mild Orton effect glows added to the ground with Luminar Neo and to the sky with Nik Collection Color EFX. All with the Canon RF 15-35mm at 15mm and at f/2.8, and for 1-minute exposures at ISO 1600 for the tracked sky exposures on the Star Adventurer 2i. I shot a total of 250 images, over 4h15m, from 10:45 pm to 3 am. So about 1 in 10 images recorded meteors. This was August 12, 2023, on a night with near perfect conditions - warm, dry, clear, no smoke and few bugs! About 6 other cars came and went at the viewpoint, but none stayed long and the last was gone by 1 am.

Two Lyrid Meteors (April 22, 2023)

Two lone Lyrid meteors on the peak of the meteor shower night, April 22, 2023. Two captured out of 342 frames taken over 2 hours. The sky and ground come from the exposure with the bright meteor on it, when a dim aurora was also on the northeast horizon. The bright meteor shows the classic green to pink gradient of colours. Vega and Lyra are rising at lower centre. Deneb and Cygnus are at left. Arcturus is at upper right. Even with only two meteors, the location of the Lyrid shower radiant point is apparent by tracing their paths back toward Vega, to a point southwest of Vega, and actually located in Hercules, not in Lyra. This is a blend of two exposures, each 20 seconds with the Venus Optics 15mm lens at f/2 on the Canon R5 at ISO 1600. Taken from home in Alberta, April 22/23, 2023.

The Geminid Meteor Shower 2022 (Tracked Version)

The Geminid meteor shower of 2022, showing the radiant point in Gemini at left, above Castor and Pollux. Orion is at lower right. Mars in Taurus is at top, to the left of Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster. The M44 Beehive star cluster is in the lower left corner. Small star clusters in Gemini (M35) and Auriga (M36, M37, M38) are at top. I shot the images for this composite from home in Alberta on December 14, 2022, the night after the peak night, which of course was cloudy. The temperature was about -15° C. A heater band on the lens kept the frost off. I had to change the camera battery once during the evening's shoot. This is a stack of 16 images of 500 shot that night, the ones containing meteors, taken over 4.5 hours from the first meteor frame to the last. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2 with the Canon RF28-70mm lens at 28mm and on the Canon R5 at ISO 800, with the camera on a tracking mount to follow the sky so each frame would automatically align. The sky and stars come from one base image taken toward the end of the sequence with this area of sky at its highest but before the waning Moon rose to light the sky. Some red airglow tints the sky.

The Geminid Meteor Shower 2022 (Untracked Version)

The Geminid meteor shower of 2022, showing the radiant point in Gemini at left, above the stars Castor and Pollux. Orion is at lower right. Mars in Taurus is at top, to the left of Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluste, and below the Pleiades. I shot the images for this composite from home in Alberta on December 14, 2022, the night after the peak night, which of course was cloudy. The temperature was about -15° C. A heater band on the lens kept the frost off. I had to change the camera battery once during the evening's shoot. This is a stack of 17 images of 500 shot that night, the ones containing meteors, taken over 4 hours from the first meteor frame to the last. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 15mm and on the Canon R6 at ISO 1600, with the camera on a fixed tripod, not tracking the sky. The ground, sky and one meteor come from one base image taken near the middle of the sequence with the winter constellations nicely framed. I manually rotated and aligned each other image to the base image, to place each meteor at close to its correct position against the background stars, to preserve the appearance of the radiant in Gemini. I blended in part of another sky image taken toward the end of the sequence when an aurora appeared briefly to the northeast. So this is certainly a time blend. The aurora actually appeared when the radiant point was higher than shown here.

Two Geminid Meteors with "Smoke" Trains

The Geminid meteor shower of 2022, showing two bright Geminids leaving yellowish ion trails or "smoke" trains in their wake. The two meteors appeared about 45 minutes apart but are blended together here. Both emanate from the radiant point in Gemini at left, above the stars Castor and Pollux. Orion is at lower right. Mars in Taurus is at top, to the left of Aldebaran and the Hyades star cluster. The Beehive star cluster, M44, is in the lower left corner. I shot the images for this composite from home in Alberta on December 14, 2022, the night after the peak night, which of course was cloudy. This is a stack of 20 images of 500 shot that night — the two frames containing the meteors, plus a total of 18 other frames immediately following the meteor frames that contained the lingering ion trails that each lasted about 5 minutes. All frames were 30 second exposures at f/2 with the Canon RF28-70mm lens and Canon R5 at ISO 800, with the camera on a tracking mount.

Big Dipper Over Pyramid Mountain at Moonrise

The stars of the Big Dipper over the iconic peak of Pyramid Mountain from Pyramid Island, a popular location in Jasper National Park, Alberta, for nightscape and aurora photography. This was on a very clear night in mid-October, 2022, with many aspen stands still in full autumn colour. The images for this scene were shot at moonrise, with the waning gibbous Moon off frame at right lighting the sky blue and landscape with warm alpenglow moonlight. As bonus, a short bright meteor and its orange "smoke" trail appeared on the sky exposures. I shot this during the first weekend of the 2022 Jasper Dark Sky Festival, and so there were quite a few people on the island and around Pyramid Lake this night enjoying the stars on this mild autumn night. This is a blend of: a stack of 4 x 1-minute tracked exposures for the sky at ISO 1600 plus a stack of 6 x 3-minute untracked exposures at ISO 800 for the ground, all with the Canon RF15-35mm lens at 20mm and f/2.8 and Canon R5. The tracker was the Star Adventurer Mini. The tracked exposures were shot first, followed immediately by the untracked ground exposures timed to catch the alpenglow lighting of the mountain and trees. I enhanced the landscape slightly with the Radiant Photo plug in and added a mild Orton glow with Luminar Neo. Noise reduction was with ON1 NoNoise AI.

Dim Perseid in the Milky Way

A lone and dim Perseid meteor (at centre) streaking down the Milky Way on the night of Aug 7-8, 2022, taken as part of a set looking for Perseids after the Moon set. But a bright aurora tinted the sky. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at left with the shower radiant point at upper left. Cygnus is at right; Cepheus is at centre. This is a single 30-second exposure at f/2.8 with the RF15-35mm lens at 20mm and Canon R5 at ISO 1600. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker.

Perseid Meteor and STEVE

A dim Perseid meteor (at top) streaking near the Milky Way on the night of Aug 7-8, 2022, taken as part of a time-lapse set for the STEVE auroral arc in frame as the pink band. The Summer Triangle stars are at right. Light from the low gibbous Moon lights the sky. This is a single 30-second exposure at f/3.2 with the RF15-35mm lens at 20mm and Canon R5 at ISO 1250. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker. The focus is a little soft!

The Tau Herculids Meteor Shower (15mm)

The rare Tau Herculids meteor shower predicted for May 30/31, 2022 as a possible meteor storm, but produced a modest "normal" meteor shower. The meteors appeared yellowish (as in the bright meteor) and were slow-moving, and often had a sparkling effect as they moved, again as per the irregular brightness of the bright meteor streak. The meteors are from remnants of the Comet 73P/Schawassmann-Wachmann 3 which broke apart in 1995. This is a blend of exposures taken over 90 minutes from 11:24 pm MDT to 12:52 am MDT, capturing 15 meteors, including a very bright one, the best of the night, which left an orange ionization "smoke" trail expanding away from the meteor over the next few minutes. Another fainter meteor below centre also left a short "smoke trail." This shows the radiant point of the Tau Herculids, actually located in Boötes above the bright star Arcturus below centre. The Coma Berenices star cluster is below the bright meteor. Corona Borealis and Hercules are left of Arcturus, while bright Vega in Lyra is at far left. The Big Dipper is at top. This is a blend of 29 exposures for the meteors and smoke trails, stacked onto the sky background taken just before the very bright meteor occured earlier in the night when the sky was still blue from lingering twilight. All were with the Canon R6 for 15 seconds each but at ISOs from 800 to 3200, increased through the night as the sky darkened, and with the 15mm Venus Optics lens wide open at f/2. The camera was on a tracking mount to keep the stars stationary over the sequence to aid in aligning and stacking the images, so the meteors appear in their correct positions relative to the background stars. Shot from home in Alberta on a very clear and fine night, a pleasant change for a celestial event!

The Tau Herculids Meteor Shower (11mm) with Labels

The rare Tau Herculids meteor shower predicted for May 30/31, 2022 as a possible meteor storm, but instead produced a modest "normal" meteor shower. The meteors appeared yellowish (as in the bright meteor) and were slow-moving, and often had a sparkling effect as they moved, again as per the irregular brightness of the bright meteor streak. The meteors were from remnants of the Comet 73P/Schawassmann-Wachmann 3 which broke apart in 1995. This is a blend of exposures taken over nearly 90 minutes from 11:23 pm MDT to 12:47 am MDT, capturing 15 meteors, including a very bright one, the best of the night, which left an orange ionization "smoke" trail expanding away from the meteor over the next few minutes. The blend includess at least three non-shower "sporadic" meteors, including one very bright one shooting toward the horizon at left in Scorpius. This shows the radiant point of the Tau Herculids, actually located in Boötes above the bright star Arcturus above centre. The field of view spans the sky from Leo, setting at far right, to Lyra and the summer Milky Way rising at far left. The Coma Berenices star cluster is below the bright meteor. Corona Borealis and Hercules are left of Arcturus, while bright Vega in Lyra is at upper left. Spica in Virgo is low in the southwest at bottom right. Scorpius and Antares are low in the southeast rising on the horizon. This is a blend of 18 exposures for the meteors and smoke trails, stacked onto the sky background taken just before the very bright meteor occured earlier in the night when the sky was still blue from lingering twilight. All were with the Canon Ra for 15 seconds each but at ISOs from 1600 to 6400, increased through the night as the sky darkened, and with the 11mm TTArtisan full-frame fish-eye lens wide open at f/2.8. The camera was on a Star Adventurer tracking mount to keep the stars stationary over the sequence to aid in aligning and stacking the images, so the meteors appear in their correct positions relative to the background stars. Shot from home in Alberta on a very clear and fine night, a pleasant change for a celestial event!

The Tau Herculids Meteor Shower (11mm)

The rare Tau Herculids meteor shower predicted for May 30/31, 2022 as a possible meteor storm, but instead produced a modest "normal" meteor shower. The meteors appeared yellowish (as in the bright meteor) and were slow-moving, and often had a sparkling effect as they moved, again as per the irregular brightness of the bright meteor streak. The meteors were from remnants of the Comet 73P/Schawassmann-Wachmann 3 which broke apart in 1995. This is a blend of exposures taken over nearly 90 minutes from 11:23 pm MDT to 12:47 am MDT, capturing 15 meteors, including a very bright one, the best of the night, which left an orange ionization "smoke" trail expanding away from the meteor over the next few minutes. The blend includess at least three non-shower "sporadic" meteors, including one very bright one shooting toward the horizon at left in Scorpius. This shows the radiant point of the Tau Herculids, actually located in Boötes above the bright star Arcturus above centre. The field of view spans the sky from Leo, setting at far right, to Lyra and the summer Milky Way rising at far left. The Coma Berenices star cluster is below the bright meteor. Corona Borealis and Hercules are left of Arcturus, while bright Vega in Lyra is at upper left. Spica in Virgo is low in the southwest at bottom right. Scorpius and Antares are low in the southeast rising on the horizon. This is a blend of 18 exposures for the meteors and smoke trails, stacked onto the sky background taken just before the very bright meteor occured earlier in the night when the sky was still blue from lingering twilight. All were with the Canon Ra for 15 seconds each but at ISOs from 1600 to 6400, increased through the night as the sky darkened, and with the 11mm TTArtisan full-frame fish-eye lens wide open at f/2.8. The camera was on a Star Adventurer tracking mount to keep the stars stationary over the sequence to aid in aligning and stacking the images, so the meteors appear in their correct positions relative to the background stars. Shot from home in Alberta on a very clear and fine night, a pleasant change for a celestial event!

Geminid Meteor in the Moonlight

A lone Geminid meteor slashes across a moonlit sky on December 12, 2021. The meteor appears above Leo (which is rising here) and well below and to the left of Gemini at top centre here, where the radiant of the meteor shower is. Orion is moving off frame at right. The gibbous Moon was off frame at right, and lights the sky and landscape like daylight, because it is daylight, only much dimmer. This was one frame of 450 taken this night, the night before the peak of the Geminids, as peak night was predicted to be cloudy. Out of 450 frames, only 3 contained meteors and this was the best one! It is a single 30-second untracked exposure with the 15mm Venus Optics lens wide open at f/2 and Canon R6 at ISO 400. Shot from home in Alberta.

Perseid Meteor Shower over Dinosaur Park

A composite showing about three dozen Perseid meteors accumulated over 3 hours of time, compressed into one image showing the radiant point of the meteor shower in Perseus. This was August 12, 2021, from The Trail of the Fossil Hunters trailhead lot in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. A dim magenta aurora is visible to the northeast at left. Cassiopeia is at centre above the radiant point; the Andromeda Galaxy is just right of centre. Capella is rising at left. Airglow also tints the sky. This is a blend of: a single 30-second exposure for the background sky, one with the aurora at its most active, such as it was this night, with a stack of 8 x 30-second exposures for the ground to smooth noise. Then 32 x 30-second exposures for the individual meteors (a couple of frames have two meteors on them) are overlaid with Lighten blend mode onto the base sky image, each with masks to reveal just the meteors. All frames were with the Canon R6 at ISO 6400 and with the TTArtisan 11mm fish-eye lens at f/2.8. The camera was on a static tripod, not tracking the sky, so I hand-rotated all the meteor frames around Polaris at upper left, to bring them into close alignment to the base sky image, so the positions of all the meteors are close to their actual positions in the starfield when they appeared. A couple of exceptions were the meteors at bottom which appeared in Taurus, below the horizon at the time the sky image was taken, so those meteors are moved up artificially. ON1 NoNoise applied to the sky image. Ground illumination is from starlight.

The Radiant of the Perseid Meteors

A composite blend illustrating the radiant point of the Perseid meteor shower in Perseus at left, taken on the night of the peak, August 12, 2021, ffrom Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. A couple of non-Perseid meteors also appear in the scene. The brightest Perseid, at bottom, left a yellowish ionized trail that appeared on several frames. Bands of red and green airglow tint the sky. The Pleiades are just rising at bottom, as is Capella in Auriga at lower left. Cassiopeia is above the radiant point. The Andromeda Galaxy is at centre. This is a stack of 27 x 1-minute tracked exposures at ISO 3200 with the Canon 6D and Rokinon 14mm SP lens at f/2.8, on the Star Adventurer tracker, for the sky and meteors, blended with a stack of 4 x 2-minute untracked exposures for the ground, taken at the beginning of the sequence. With all the sky images taken on a tracker, they all align and so the meteors do appear where they actually did against the background stars, preserving the effect of the radiant.

Shooting the 2021 Perseids

A selfie of me setting up to photograph the 2021 Perseid meteor shower on August 12, 2021 at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, as one camera captures the scene looking east while I finish setting up another camera in the foreground. The radiant of the shower is obvious, in Perseus, at lower left in the northeast. The Milky Way stretches from northeast to southwest (top right). A dim red aurora is on the horizon to the northeast. Cygnus is overhead at centre. Jupiter is the bright object above me. The Big Dipper is at upper left low in the northwest. This is a blend of 24 exposures taken over 3 hours, with the foreground coming from one image at the start of the sequence which had a meteor in it. The other 23 images add the other meteors, so this blend compresses 3 hours of meteor activity into one frame. All were with the TTArtisan 7.5mm circular fish-eye lens at f/2 on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 3200 for a series of 30-second exposures, 316 in all over 3 hours, from which the 24 with meteors were extracted for stacking with Lighten blend mode. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker to make alignment of the meteors easier in post-production, so the meteors are where they appeared in the sky relative to the background stars. This lens does not fill the frame; it is a circular fish-eye but at f/2 faster than any other fish-eye that fits on a full-frame camera, with the speed essential for picking up meteors. I was setting up another tracker to take shots with a 14mm lens.

Comet NEOWISE and Ursa Major Over Mount Wilson (July 26, 2020)

Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) on July 26, 2020 from Saskatchewan River Crossing in Banff National Park, Alberta. The comet is just about to set behind Mount Wilson, the iconic peak in the area. A meteor appears at top in the image framed to include the Big Dipper and the constellation of Ursa Major. While the comet was fading, its blue ion and white dust tails still show up well. It was from near here that scientist and explorer James Hector, member of the 1858-59 Palliser Expediton, observed Comet Donati on September 10, 1858 as they made their way up the valleys of the Bow, Mistaya, Howse and Saskatchewan Rivers, as part of a British scientific expedition to map the area and much of southern Alberta. This is an exposure blend of a stack of 4 x 2-minute untracked exposures for the ground at ISO 800 (exposed long to bring out ground details), with 3 x 30-second tracked and stacked exposures at ISO 1600 for the sky. I shot short exposures for the sky to catch the comet before it set. The meteor was on one frame of the sky stack layered and blended in separately. The camera was on the iOptron SkyGuider Pro tracker. For the ground shots I simply turned the tracker motor off. All with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra. Topaz Sharpen AI applied to the ground. In camera LENR employed on all shots on this warm night. Shot from the parking lot of the Howse Pass Viewpoint area off the Icefields Parkway.

Two Lone Lyrids

A capture of two Lyrid meteors on April 20, 2020, the night before the peak of this annual meteor shower. I shot 250 frames over more than two hours and captured only these two Lyrids streaking away from the radiant point in Hercules west of Lyra and the bright star at centre, Vega. A couple of other streaks are from a satellite and aircraft. A dim aurora lights the sky at left to the north. This view is looking east but the wide fish-eye lens takes in a sweep of almost 180 degrees. Each exposure is 30 seconds at ISO 3200 with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.

Comet Wirtanen with Meteor and the Dark Clouds of Taurus

This is Comet Wirtanen 46P in Taurus on December 14/15, 2018 accompanied by a meteor, caught by chance of course. The meteor has left a yellowish “smoke” cloud. Yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades are at bottom, the pink California Nebula (NGC 1499) is at top, in Perseus, while the blue Pleiades are at centre. They form a nice colour contrast with the cyan-green comet. The Taurus Dark Clouds of interstellar dust are at left. Comet Wirtanen was two days before its closest approach to Earth and nearly at its brightest. It was visible to the unaided eye. I got a chance to capture this and other views after Chinook clouds cleared off near midnight on Dec 14/15. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800 with the Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8. The meteor is from one of those frames. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker.

Meteor, Comet, Stars, and Nebulas!

This is Comet Wirtanen 46P in Taurus on December 14/15, 2018 accompanied by a Geminid meteor, caught by chance of course. Yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades are at left, the pink California Nebula (NGC 1499) is at right, in Perseus, while the blue Pleiades are at centre. They form a nice colour contrast with the cyan-green comet. The Taurus Dark Clouds of interstellar dust are at top. Comet Wirtanen was two days before its closest approach to Earth and nearly at its brightest. It was visible to the unaided eye. I got a chance to capture this and other views after Chinook clouds cleared off near midnight on Dec 14/15. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800 with the Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8. The meteor is from one of those frames. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker.

Geminid Meteors and Comet Wirtanen, with Labels (Dec 12, 2018)

A composite of several exposures to stack images of five Geminid meteors into a wide view of the winter sky with Comet Wirtanen at upper right in Taurus, taken on December 12, 2018. The meteors are shooting away from the radiant point in Gemini near the bluish-white star Castor at left. All the images for the base sky layer and the meteors were shot as part of the same sequence and framing, with a 24mm lens and Nikon D750 on a Star Adventurer tracker. The camera is unmodified so the red nebulosity in this part of the sky appears rather pale. Capella and the Pleiades are at top, Orion is at bottom, Taurus is at centre, while Gemini and the radiant point of the shower is at lower left. The Taurus Dark Clouds complex is at upper centre. All exposures were 30 seconds at f/2 and ISO 1600. I started the sequence with the camera framing this area of the sky when it was just rising in the east in the moonlight then followed it for 4 hours until clouds moved in. So all the images align, but out of 477 frames shot only these 5 had Geminid meteors. Images layered and stacked in Photoshop.

Geminid Meteors and Comet Wirtanen (Dec 12, 2018)

A composite of several exposures to stack images of five Geminid meteors into a wide view of the winter sky with Comet Wirtanen at upper right in Taurus, taken on December 12, 2018. The meteors are shooting away from the radiant point in Gemini near the bluish-white star Castor at left. The Milky Way runs vertically through the frame from Auriga at top to past Orion at bottom. All the images for the base sky layer and the meteors were shot as part of the same sequence and framing, with a 24mm lens and Nikon D750 on a Star Adventurer tracker. The camera is unmodified so the red nebulosity in this part of the sky appears rather pale. Capella and the Pleiades are at top, Orion is at bottom, Taurus is at centre, while Gemini and the radiant point of the shower is at lower left. The Taurus Dark Clouds complex is at upper centre. All exposures were 30 seconds at f/2 and ISO 1600. I started the sequence with the camera framing this area of the sky when it was just rising in the east in the moonlight then followed it for 4 hours until clouds moved in. So all the images align, but out of 477 frames shot only these 5 had Geminid meteors. Images layered and stacked in Photoshop.

Sweeping Arc of the Northern Lights

The grand sweep of the aurora borelis across the northern and northeastern sky, from Tibbitt Lake near Yellowknife, NWT, on September 8, 2018. The Big Dipper and Polaris are at left; Auriga and Taurus are rising at right, with Capella, Aldebaran and the Pleiades coming up in the east. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at top in the Milky Way. There’s a meteor streaking down at top as well! This is a mean-combined stack of 8 exposures for the ground to smooth noise, and one exposure for the sky, all 15 seconds at f/2.8 with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens, and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. This was part of a time-lapse, taken before the arc swept overhead while it was still across the north and east.