rural-Stark County, IL southeast of Kewanee, IL
On December 13th, I was able to view the Geminid Meteor Shower as I traveled to rural-Stark County, IL to escape the city lights/light pollution of Peoria, IL. Early-on some pesky high-level cirrus clouds I had to deal with through the evening, but it quickly cleared out by 9:00pm. Their were nearly perfect viewing conditions thereafter for the meteor shower with no moonlight to be concerned with. I saw a few nice "fireball" meteors and also a few small ones as well throughout the night. I really only caught "one" on a long-exposure that darted across the northern sky in front of a small lighthouse just before I was about to "kill" the long exposure I was taking. Despite the chilly conditions I was happy with a long night of photography shooting several shots of star trails. I've added several photos from the night below:
providing an interesting orange-hue to the sky!
the stars to show themselves the rest of the night...
to create some dramatic photos!
background of this shot...
Another cool shot! (looking north)
not sure which one I like better yet...
I like this one better...
That wraps up this post. The lack of winter weather in this area has been quite annoying thus far this month. We did finally get our first snowfall however. 2012 will sure go down as one of the weirdest years of weather in recent memory. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for 2013 already...
