Merging meteor photos into a composite photo

I haven't used Gimp with layers before, but I do use layers in Photoshop.

I haven't tried making a composite image, but note that Pete Lawrence did one of the sky over his house in Selsey a couple of days ago:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Perseids composite by Pete Lawrence[/caption]

I'm not sure how he did this, but imagine he is adding layers with different opacity and merge settings. He must have to de-rotate the sky as well, in order to show the meteors all coming from the same radiant.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for this, that's great!

I've managed to use the layers to put all the photos together and need to rotate the layers to line up the stars. I think it is much easier in Photoshop than Gimp - the reason I am stuck is because I do not have 'drawing' tools to mark the centre of rotation >(

I will still have a go and post my results later.

Sumitra

Here's what I have managed:

Catching Perseids! Night of Aug 12th and 13th 2014! This is a composite image of the brightest meteors I caught. I used layers, manually aligned the stars (due to the rotation of the earth) and revealed the meteors on a chosen base layer. The ISS can be seen top right.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="635"] Composite image with 6 frames during a night of the Perseid meteor shower[/caption]

Feedback welcome!

Wow, that's as good as Pete Lawrences!  I can imaging the work put in to align everything.  Nicely framed foreground too

Seems like you will be another of my target experts here that I will be prying for astrophotography tips...you have been warned!

Ha! :0)

Well, happy to help if I can!

And thank you for your comments *blush*

So thrilled this photo was used in an article on the Washington Post! 🙂

Brilliant photo and fame as well.

Thanks Brian!

Maybe you would write a information sheet on how you did it for members to use.

Maybe you would write a information sheet on how you did it for members to use.

It's on a long to do list - it's a little bit tricky and long to explain via words. Plus will depend greatly on the software used. I think it would be so very hard (off putting unless you don't mind writing on you screen!) to do in the Gimp and not everyone has Photoshop...