Milky Way & Meteorite

The wife arrived home about 10.15pm and I was just about to have a beer when my friend said it was a clear night and he was going to the Brecon Beacons to do some star photography. For the next four days the forecast is an abundance of meteorites.

I got my night-pass from Mrs BB and we headed for the top of Pen-Y-Fan mountain, Brecon. It is the highest peak in south Wales, situated in the Brecon Beacons National Park, at 886 metres above sea-level.


We stopped to take this photo on the way up using the gate and Pen-Y-Fan mountain to frame part of The Milky Way galaxy. I was lucky enough to get a meteorite in this exposure. I took fourteen images and also got one in another. The Delta Aquarid meteor shower takes place late July & August and to add to this shower, it overlaps with the famous Perseid meteor shower, which will peak on the mornings of August 11, 12 and 13. We saw loads of meteorites but as they can happen any direction and last a second or two it isn't easy catching them!

In pitch blackness, with only our small torches, we continued to the top of Pen-Y-Fan, arriving at 2am. There is no picture to celebrate the 'Fan Dance' as the fog was so thick we could hardly see each other! It had come down so fast and not only that, the clouds had completely blocked out the stars. It was a case of trekking back down the mountain and going home. So much for the forecast of clear skies. At least we got something before the weather changed.

There is no one standard Welsh translation of Pen y Fan, but 'the mountain's peak' or 'the beacon's summit' are both possible translations.