{"id":591266,"date":"2026-08-12T20:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T20:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/591266\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T20:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T20:02:13","slug":"i-photographed-the-northern-lights-and-a-perseid-meteor-in-the-same-frame-and-i-used-one-of-the-cheapest-lenses-in-my-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/591266\/","title":{"rendered":"I photographed the Northern Lights and a Perseid meteor in the same frame \u2013 and I used one of the cheapest lenses in my bag"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astrophotography to me has always seemed like a mix between planning, technique \u2013 and sheer luck. I was photographing the Northern Lights a few days ago when I managed to capture another astrophotography phenomenon in the same frame: a Perseid meteor.<\/p>\n

While photographing the Northern Lights<\/a> requires ideal conditions and the lights are often short-lived, that\u2019s not entirely true for the Perseids. The meteors still need clear skies and low light pollution, but they’re hardly a one-night-only show. While the Perseid meteors<\/a> peak August 12-13, the meteor shower stretches from July 17 through August 24, leaving plenty of room to re-plan if clouds get in the way.<\/p>\n

I took this photo on August 2, a full ten days before the peak of the meteor shower would heighten my chances of catching one \u2013 or several \u2013 in the same frame.<\/p>\n

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\"The
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Click the bottom left corner to view a larger version (Image credit: Hillary K. Grigonis)<\/p>\n

The challenging part about photographing the Perseids is that if I wait until I see one streak across the sky, I\u2019ve already missed my shot. Catching the meteors on camera<\/a> typically involves a long exposure time and taking multiple shots.<\/p>\n

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But trying to get the Northern Lights and a meteor in the same shot proved even trickier. The Northern Lights were close to the horizon, not overhead. I still wanted the lights reflected off the lake to be in the shot, so the sky only takes up part of the frame.<\/p>\n

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I managed to catch a meteor on the upper edge of the frame by digging out the widest lens that I have in my bag: The Venus Optics Laowa 9mm f\/2.8 Zero-D<\/a>, which, on my Fujifilm X-T4,<\/a> is a 13.5mm lens in full-frame equivalent.<\/p>\n

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\"The
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To view a larger version, click the bottom left corner (Image credit: Hillary K. Grigonis)<\/p>\n

The 9mm is a recent addition to my camera bag that I added to my wish list specifically for astrophotography. The lens is one of the most affordable lenses in my bag (excluding the PolarPro LightLeak<\/a> and a vintage film lens I picked up at a garage sale<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The best camera deals, reviews, product advice, and unmissable photography news, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

One of the reasons that the 9mm sits more on the affordable side is that it\u2019s a manual-focus-only lens. I usually prefer autofocus lenses, but autofocus doesn\u2019t work on the stars (at least, not for most cameras<\/a>), so I knew I wouldn\u2019t miss it too much.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t manage to catch the Perseid meteors until after the Northern Lights seemed to slow down a bit from the pillars that I spotted just after sunset. But I was ecstatic to catch multiple night sky phenomena in one shot, without stacking multiple images together.<\/p>\n

The Perseids peak August 12-13 and continue through August 24. Read more on how to plan and what camera settings to use in this guide on how to photograph the Perseids<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Today’s best Laowa 9mm f\/2.8 Zero-D deals<\/p>\n

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Browse the best lenses for astrophotography<\/a>, or learn what other astro events to photograph in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Astrophotography to me has always seemed like a mix between planning, technique \u2013 and sheer luck. I was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-591266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}