Nearly all weather prediction for the area showed a good probability for thunderstorms tonight and a great deal of cloud cover. However, the skies began to clear gradually to less than perfect conditions. High humidity, not the best transparency and the "seeing" was a bit fuzzy, but what the heck...I could see stars! And the Persied Meteor shower was peaking! We have had at least two weeks of heavy rain and thunderstorms. Many people in Missouri suffered flooding and property damage. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see the stars again. we live high on a ridge so we had few problems with the wet weather.
I did manage to capture three Perseid meteors on this night
Image 2) Was made on 08/12/2013 at 22:54:57 local Time
A cannon 60Da camera fitted with a 18mm f3.5 manual focus Zeiss lens was used on a Losmandy G-8 GEM, an ISO of 1000 was used and exposure times of about two minutes each were made.