Pennybacker Bridge, Night of the Draconids Meteor
Austin_Skyline_and_Landscape_Images

by

Rob Greebon

Pennybacker Bridge, Night of the Draconids Meteor
View Larger
Pennybacker Bridge, Night of the Draconids Meteor
This image is a composite of 26 images. First, I arrived at Pennybacker Bridge in Austin, Texas, on October 8th one of the two nights the Draconid Meteor shower was supposed to be at peak). I took several shots at f/14 after sunset but before dark so I could use these images as the foreground. After dark, I switched the aperture to f/2.8 and set the automatic shutter to take 30 second exposures until the battery ran out. Over the course of ~ 500 exposures, I was able to capture many "shooting stars" - the trails of Draconid meteors. ..Back home, I tediously went through each image and extracted the best images to use -those with the biggest and most colorful meteors. I then stacked these Draconids in layers, rotated them to match the correct position of the stars to match the earth's rotation over 4hours, and blended them back in using a series of Photoshop tools...I planned this shot for several months, then waited and hoped for a clear night. The moonless night helped the stars show up, as well. ..The postprocessing on this image of Pennybacker Bridge underneath the Draconids took several weeks before finally producing this image.