Perseid night

Ok, so this was the weekend of the Perseid meteor shower.

For once the Caithness skies were unusually clear, so I set up my tripod and went outside. I sat outside until 2am. I was cold, but despite a cricked neck I totally enjoyed myself. Star gazing is one of my favourite things...its dark, the sky is full of twinkly lights and the sounds of owls hooting and sheep bleating is just sublime. Usually I just lie in the grass or on a bench, but with my camera I had to do that shuffle thing to get comfy every now and again.

In all that time I saw FIVE meteors. Yup. Five.

And about ten satellites. Yes...this was going around my head all night

And my pictures are all rubbish.

And Sunday's skies were cloudy. (no pics there then)

However, despite no fab trailblazing meteor pics I did capture this.

I watched one of the satellites slowly creep its way towards the star I'd focussed on...then it started to get brighter...like REALLY bright. Luckily at its brightest I managed to snap it so here you see its progress as the shutter did its photographic capture thingy. It was brighter than the star, which was really quite a bright star to start with so I could focus on it. In fact, this satellite was so bloody bright I was half expecting Close Encounters music and a sudden swooping away upwards.

I have a sneaky suspicion that this was actually a satellite which was turning bits on it that caught the sun and I was lucky enough to see it.

But you may have different ideas?

(btw this was taken at 1.05pm on Saturday night/Sunday morning)