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Tag : geminid meteor shower

Alone with the Night Sky – Astrophotography

I have a bit of a thing for meteors for some reason, and I’ve tried capturing photos of them before. The last time I made any real effort was a bit of a bust. I lugged camping gear to the top of Vent’s Ridge back in May of 2014 to attempt to capture a purported 1,000 meteors per hour from the rare Camelopardalid meteor shower.

Maze Peak

After looking at our options for the weekend, Ben, Steven and I decided that it made the most sense to try for a hiking or snow shoe trip on Sunday, December 14th. Considering the snow conditions everywhere, we settled on Maze Peak in the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch area of the Rockies, west of Sundre Alberta. Our initial plan consisted of meeting in Sundre on Sunday morning before driving to the trail head. As I was puttering around the house on Saturday afternoon I over heard something about meteor showers in the area for that night. I immediately went on the web and discovered that the Geminid Meteor shower was indeed occurring now, with the most intense shower being the night of December 13th. Ya Ha Tinda is an isolated place with very little light pollution. Since I was planning to be there the next day anyway, I couldn’t think of any reason not to go the night before and try to witness some of these meteors myself. I contacted Ben and Steven about my plan and they agreed to also drive all the way to the (free) Bighorn Campground where we would spend the night meteor and star gazing before ascending Maze Peak on Sunday.