Perseids in Rocky Mountain National Park

It's really fun to be outside at night under the stars, especially when skies are dark, and the Perseids come out to play!

This year's Perseids meteor show was hyped up to be unusually good, with a closer approach of comet Swift-Tuttle's tail debris passing through Earth's orbit.

We went to Walden, Colorado in 2013 to observe and photograph the Perseids, but this year stayed close to home. The sky in Rocky Mountain National Park isn't as dark as Walden, but once the moon set, it was dark enough to get a good show.

At about 11:30pm on Aug 11, I drove up Trail Ridge Road, stopping at Many Parks Curve, Rainbow Curve, Forest Canyon Overlook, and Milner Pass before turning around to head home and get some sleep.

As always, click on an image for a larger version.

View from Many Parks Curve, looking east towards Estes Park and the plains. Deer Mountain center, YMCA far right

Here are some of the night shots I got during my outing.

Looking northwest from Many Parks Curve

Even with the bright moonlight, you could still see Andromeda (top center in above photo).

From Many Parks Curve. YMCA of the Rockies at lower left

The moon was illuminating the clouds as the passed overhead going east. I went west from here. Rainbow Curve was very crowded, so I drove on up the road, climbing higher and deeper into the park.

At the Forest Canyon Overlook, I found several cars in the parking lot, with a couple sitting in lawn chairs near their car. I decided to stop and walk out to the overlook. The moon was almost bright enough that I didn't need my headlamp. When I got to the end of the paved path, I found I had it all to myself!

Me and my moonlight shadow (bottom right) near the Forest Canyon Overlook

A meteor streaks by at far right center of frame

Looking east from Forest Canyon; Longs Peak with moon shadows, too!

After I bit I went on down the road, finding Rock Cut to be too busy, so I drove on to the Lava Cliffs overlook. It was busy too, but I want to be here as the moon set.

Another meteor at left

Finally, the moon went down and began to get a lot darker, making the Milky "pop" quite a bit more.

My car with the Milky Way over it

Meteor at left; Ypsilon, Chiquita, Chapin peaks at far right

Some of the people at the Lava Cliffs parking were walking around with their headlamps, so I decided to move on. I skipped the Alpine Visitors Center which had about 20 cars in the lot, and also drove on past Medicine Bow Curve.

The Milky Way over the parking lot at Milner Pass

I stopped at Milner Pass, where I had the whole place to myself. It was very dark here, now, with only starlight illuminating my path. I used my red headlamp to preserve my night vision.

I decided to setup to shoot some pictures with Poudre Lake in the foreground and was soon rewarded with a meteor reflecting on the lake.

Meteor over Poudre Lake

At one point, just as I had finished re-adjusting the framing of the camera on the tripod, I saw an incredible bright meteor flash by, but I didn't have an exposure going. I tripped the shutter release, and was still able to capture the "smoke" that still hung in the atmosphere!

Meteor "smoke" at top center; it hung there for over 4 minutes!

Soon, I realized that the moisture evaporating off Poudre Lake was fogging my lens, so I packed up at about 1:30am and headed east. Again, I skipped Medicine Bow Curve and the AVC, and didn't stop again until Rainbow Curve, where I joined the still active party of observers and photographers.

Looking east from Rainbow Curve; light curves are cars on Trail Ridge Road at 2am!

As I had done earlier, I setup my gear to shoot continuously, hoping to catch a big meteor, and it wasn't long before I was rewarded with this shot, the best one I captured of the night.

This huge meteor streak left it's own little smoke cloud for several seconds

I was getting pretty tired, so at about 3:30am I packed up and drove back home, but couldn't resist taking a shot of our house before I went inside to hit the sack!

It was a very fun night!

Dark Sky and Perseids Meteor Shower (Aug 12)

Susan and I have always been interested in the night sky, especially the various meteor showers throughout the year. This year we were determined to get out to a dark sky location and enjoy the Perseids meteor shower.

The night sky conditions this year were ideal, as the waxing crescent moon would have already set by the time we would begin observing. However, in the days leading up to the peak of the Perseids on Aug 12, the weather was not cooperating, at least in the Colorado areas we were considering.

Dark sky areas are unshaded (courtesy of Dark Sky Finder); Pawnee is the green box at upper right

We have wonderful night skies in Estes Park, but we also have light pollution from the front range. I wanted to stay relatively close and go to either the Pawnee National Grassland area or the Walden, Colorado area. On Sunday, based on weather, we decided to head over to Walden and hoped that the weather forecast for clear skies between midnight and 3am Monday was accurate.

We drove over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky around mid-day and worked our way up to Walden, driving through the Arapaho NWR before going into town to check in to our room at the North Park Inn and Suites. Then we went to the River Rock Cafe at the Antlers Inn to have an early dinner.

When we walked in to the restaurant, we saw our friend Lyn, also from Estes Park! We ran into her recently on the Ute Trail in Rocky, too. She joined us for the rest of her dinner and then left to pursue her own photographic interests near Lost Lake. After dinner we headed out west of Walden to the Delaney Lakes and Delaney Buttes area to explore possible spots to watch and photograph the Perseids.

Delaney Buttes, west of Walden

Cabin ruins just off the dirt road

Storm clouds reflected on North Delaney Lake

Susan captured this crescent moon in the clouds

As we left the area, we enjoyed watching several scattered thunderstorms all around us, and were in a good position to stop and photograph lightning coming from one of them.

Huge thunderstorm south of Walden

As we moved on, we noticed some nice color from the sunset and stopped to shoot that, too. It appears that one of these shots of the color forming over the mountains captured a meteor streaking by!

Nice color in the sky after sunset!

We think the white streak at upper left center is a meteor. How lucky can you get in 1/100 of a second?!

After it got dark, we headed back to our room to try to sleep for awhile before getting up around 1115pm to go back out -- but only if the skies cleared! We slept only an hour or so, then looked out the window, but couldn't tell if it was clear or not. The weather maps were showing that a hole in the clouds might be opening up, so we decided to head out. As soon as we got outside we could see a few clouds, but also a few stars, so we headed straight for Delaney Lakes!

Night sky at North Delaney Lake; light pollution from Walden at left and front range at right

The farther we got from town, it became more obvious just how clear the skies were and we were seeing a lot of stars, the Milky Way, and even a meteor or two just looking out the car windows! Our first stop was the end of the road at North Delaney Lake just before midnight. We got out the camera and tripod, let our eyes adjust to the almost total darkness, and immediately began enjoying meteors all over the sky, but especially from the northeast.

Our car "Tina" poses with the Milky Way and a meteor streaking down from the top

After 45 minutes or so we drove farther west to the ruins of the cabin we'd found earlier in the day. We set up our gear here and continued our observations, and photography.

With the old cabin in the foreground, three meteors in one shot, with Andromeda at upper right; 13 sec exposure

Star trails around the North Star with a meteor streaking through at upper left; 331 second exposure

And attempt to light paint the cabin with my headlamp

Andromeda with a meteor streaking by with white, green and purple colors

Extreme crop of picture above showing detail of the meteor streak

Around 2am we decided to head back, stopping on the paved road near the path of power pylons heading to the southwest. I couldn't resist an "artsy" shot of the tower in the foreground with the Milky Way.

Power pylon, wires and Milky Way

Milky Way

Soon we were back at our room where we crashed and slept until about 8am. After breakfast at the Antlers Inn, we headed back toward Estes Park, stopping at the Windy Gap Watchable Wildlife Site and noted that Lyn's car was parked next to us (though she was off riding her bike)!

Our drive home was uneventful save for a "ram jam" (big horn sheep) high on Trail Ridge. That, and when we got to the east side of the Park we were surprised to see that it had snowed as low as 8,100 ft elevation! That's pretty early, even for Estes Park!

For you photographers, all the night sky shots were made with a Canon 5D Mark III DSLR, Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 II lens, intervalometer/shutter release, and tripod. The best shots here were around 13-15 seconds at about ISO 2000 and f/2.2 or so. I'm mostly happy with the way they came out, but I think they were slightly underexposed, so I'll probably go up to ISO 2500 and maybe 18 seconds next time (or try using histograms). I'd also like to do more star trails and/or some foreground light painting.

We were very pleased with the our Perseids and Milky Way show and we're already talking about where to go for our next dark sky experience. Pawnee would be good, but so would Arches NP, Dinosaur NM, Natural Bridges NM, Great Sand Dunes NM, and many other places we love. Stay tuned!