Why does nobody talk about trying to photograph a meteor shower from a city park

I drove out to Memorial Park in Houston last August thinking I’d get clear shots of the Perseids. Instead I got 47 blurry frames of streetlights and a drunk guy asking if I was filming a UFO. Has anyone else given up on urban astrophotography?

3 comments

3 Comments

west.henry2mo ago

Light pollution filters help a little but they just turn the orange sky into a weird muddy brown. Tried shooting from a small park in Nashville once and my best photo was a pigeon photobombing a satellite trail. City parks are basically giant light bulbs with grass.

alexw751mo ago

Wait, have you tried stacking multiple exposures with something like Sequator? It can help pull a little more detail out of the sky even in bad light. But yeah, city parks are really just big concrete light boxes. I tried shooting from a park near downtown Cincinnati once and my "stars" were mostly just bugs and airplane lights. The pigeon story is funny though, at least you got one decent subject out of it. Honestly, the only way I've gotten half decent city astro is by shooting straight up between buildings to block out the worst of the streetlights. Still ends up looking like a muddy mess though.

lindamartin2mo ago

Oh man I feel this so hard. Honestly trying to shoot astro in the city is like trying to read a book in a disco. I live near Atlanta and the best I've managed is a single clear shot of the moon through a haze of streetlight orange. Tbh I just go to the cemetery outside town now at least the dead don't complain about my tripod. Ngl that pigeon photobomb story is kind of amazing though.