On Saturday night the 5th of August, I drove up to Montebello Ridge off Page Mill Road. I tried taking a few images of the night sky in hopes of seeing the Perseid Meteor shower. This was about a week before the predicted peak, but I was still optimistic. Perhaps, overly optimistic. Because I didn't see a single meteor in the two hours I was in that location.
I tried doing a few time exposures and I got mixed results. The one thing that did surprise me was that I was able to actually see the milky way from this close to the Bay Area. I guess the sky was clear enough and the light pollution was low enough that I could easily make it out as a sort of light thin cloudy trail across the sky. In fact, I first thought it was just a thin trail of clouds.
I opened an app on my phone called Sky Safari and the app put up a display of the stars according to my actual location and which way I pointed the back of the phone. I could easily pick out the names of the stars, constellations, and planets by aligning the display with the points of light in the sky I could see. The app played a soothing music in the background as I amused myself with the display.
Below is a five minute exposure I made on that night.
My plan is to try again from a different location. About 1.8 miles further West. That will be over the ridge and I shouldn't have as much light pollution from the Bay Area. Of course, wishing is not the same as having. So I'll just have to see how it goes.
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