Starry Night, Few Meteors

With the peak night and clear skies for the annual Leonids Meteor Shower, I was expecting big things. Not so! In the nearly-two hours I was outside for the event, I saw only about 2-3 meteors, all dim and all out of my camera's eye. So instead, I captured areas of the night sky. All of these images were captured from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and are 10 second exposures at f/1/8, ISO 320 and 35mm focal length. The image above was captured at 12:27 am CST on Saturday, November 18, 2023, and looks east. The bright star in the upper right is the 0.37 magnitude Procyon in the constellation Canis Minor.

1:12 am. Looking southeast. Constellation Orion at top right. At middle is the -1.47 magnitude star Sirius in the constellation Canis Major.

1:23 am. Constellation Orion (hidden in a spangle of stars), looking southeast. The star Sirius is at lower left.

1:39 am. Looking southwest. At upper left is the constellation Taurus, right of Taurus is the star cluster Pleiades, and at lower right is the -2.87 magnitude planet Jupiter. Nikon Z6ii camera.