By Mike Busch

Sunday Morning had perfect conditions for trying to capture the Milky Way: clear skies and a Waxing Moon setting around 2:00 a.m.  As a bonus, it was also the peak evening for the Lyrid Meteor Shower.

The Lyrids are not nearly as bright or numerous as the Perseids in August or  Gemenids is December so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Giving up sleep for the night, I headed to the east side of Moriches Inlet via the Cupsogue Outer Beach around 2:30 a.m.   As I was setting up my first camera I saw my first meteor that flamed out fairly close to the horizon over the Ocean.  My plan was to use two cameras and set them in time lapse mode, allowing the cameras to shoot at roughly 15 second intervals and 15 second exposures.  This ensures that I wouldn’t miss any meteors over the Ocean and allow me to merge the photos later into short videos.

Oddly enough the first meteor was the only I one that I noticed with the naked eye but the cameras caught quite a few as you will see below and in the video.   Around 5:00 a.m. the cameras picked up a brief shower of meteors- check out the video at the 30 second mark.

I posted another feature on shooting the Milky Way in late March that goes into more detail on settings if you want to try this for yourself.

More Photos on Page 2