--- title: Perseid Meteor Shower 2016: Photos from Around the World description: Photographers captured images of the best meteor shower of 2016. canonical: https://time.com/4450109/perseids-meteor-shower-photos/ author: Marisa Gertz article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-12T15:40:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:57.174Z article:section: Science og:title: The Best Photos of the 2016 Perseids Meteor Shower og:description: Photographers captured images of the best meteor shower of 2016. og:url: https://time.com/4450109/perseids-meteor-shower-photos/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd67b74a0ff08ccf/6988a226428a9e9ecccd3e26/perseid-meteor-shower-2016-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Perseid meteor shower seen near Kavarna, Bulgaria og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Best Photos of the 2016 Perseids Meteor Shower twitter:description: Photographers captured images of the best meteor shower of 2016. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfd67b74a0ff08ccf/6988a226428a9e9ecccd3e26/perseid-meteor-shower-2016-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # These Are the Best Photos of the 2016 Perseids Meteor Shower > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: How to Photograph at Night [Watch (HLS stream): How to Photograph at Night](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UkEDGERp.m3u8) (4:11)  _Published 2016-08-09. Photographs by Stuart Palley_ by [Marisa Gertz](https://time.com/author/marisa-gertz/) ## Marisa Gertz Aug 12, 2016 3:40 PM UTC  A view of meteors lighting up the night sky above a wind turbine at 'Saint Nikola' wind park near the Kavarna, some 500km from Sofia, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2016. A view of meteors lighting up the night sky above a wind turbine at 'Saint Nikola' wind park near the Kavarna, some 500km from Sofia, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2016. Vassil Donev—EPA by [Marisa Gertz](https://time.com/author/marisa-gertz/) ## Marisa Gertz Aug 12, 2016 3:40 PM UTC This week’s [Perseids meteor shower](http://time.com/4446621/perseids-2016-meteor-shower-watch-live/) is slated to be the best of 2016 for viewers in the northern hemisphere. During the event, astronomers predicted that about 50 to 60 meteors would be visible every hour. The [Perseids](https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch%5Fthe%5FSkies/2016/08/02/look-up-perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-aug-11-12/) are an annual occurrence, visible to the naked eye every August, when Earth travels through the debris of an ancient comet called Swift-Tuttle. The debris disintegrates in our atmosphere, creating beautiful [shooting stars](http://time.com/3994188/see-perseid-meteor-shower-photos/). The reason they are called Perseids is because, from our perspective, they seem to emanate from the constellation Perseus. This year, forecasters also predicted a [Perseid outburst](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/watchtheskies/perseid-meteor-shower-aug11-12.html), a meteor shower with more meteors than usual. Most years, Earth grazes the edge of the debris stream, but this year, Jupiter’s gravity dragged the stream closer to us, meaning the Earth passed through closer to the center. “The meteors you’ll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago,” said Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office. “And they’ve traveled billions of miles before their kamikaze run into Earth’s atmosphere.”  Satellites, planes and comets transit across the night sky under stars that appear to rotate above Corfe Castle, United Kingdom, on Aug. 12, 2016.The Perseids meteor shower occurs every year when the Earth passes through the cloud of debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, and appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images  A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky above Inspiration Point in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, early on Aug. 12, 2016. Ethan Miller—Getty Images  A view of meteors lighting up the night sky above a wind turbine at 'Saint Nikola' wind park near the Kavarna, some 500km from Sofia, Bulgaria, Aug. 12, 2016. Vassil Donev—EPA  A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky above the ruins of a church in the Los Alcornocales (cork oak forests) nature park, during the Perseid meteor shower in the ancient village of La Sauceda, near Cortes de la Frontera, southern Spain, in the early morning of Aug. 12, 2016. Jon Nazca—Reuters  A shooting star is seen in the night sky during the Perseids meteor shower in Jankowo, Poland, Aug. 11, 2016. Lukasz Ogrodowczyk—EPA  A composite image made from 726 photographs taken over three hours, showing the rotation of the earth around Polaris, the North Star, in the night sky over Ashton Windmill, Somerset ahead of the Perseid meteor shower, Aug. 10, 2016. Ben Birchall—PA Wire/Press Association Images  A meteor streaks across the sky in the early morning during the Perseid meteor shower in Ramon Crater near the town of Mitzpe Ramon, southern Israel, Aug. 12, 2016. Amir Cohen—Reuters  A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky above medieval tombstones in Radmilje near Stolac, south of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aug. 12, 2016. Dado Ruvic—Reuters  A Perseid meteor flashes across the night sky above Corfe Castle, United Kingdom, on Aug. 12, 2016. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images  Meteors streak across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower above Van Lake, in eastern Turkey, Aug. 12, 2016. Sitki Yildiz—Anadolu Agency/Getty Images  A meteor streaks across the sky in the early morning during the Perseid meteor shower in Ramon Crater near the town of Mitzpe Ramon, southern Israel, Aug. 12, 2016. Amir Cohen—Reuters  A meteor moving past stars in the night sky over lake Neusiedlersee near Moerbisch am See, around 70km southeast of Vienna, Austria, early Aug. 12, 2016. Lisi Niesner—EPA  The Perseids meteor shower, Russia, Aug. 12, 2016. Vladimir Astapkovich—Sputnik/AP  In this 30 second exposure, a meteor streaks across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower in Spruce Knob, West Virginia, Aug. 12, 2016. Bill Ingalls—NASA  A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky above trees in the central Israeli village of Luzit on Aug. 12, 2016. Menahem Kahanam—AFP/Getty Images ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I fell in love with photographing at night both for how cool the product looks and how beautiful the pictures can be to see this capture of the milky way when it's brilliance. So, this is placed in a different light that's not day light. Its all about capturing the sense of scale that photographing the Earth or the sky at night creates. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Iceland is an environment very much where nature is always present. [ INAUDIBLE ] [ MUSIC ] Timing the photograph and neither certainly a critical aspect. It is literally ten times harder when it's cold and you're in the dark and tired And fumbling around for stuff and looking for views. So always try and scout things out in advance if you can. 90 % of it is preparation and 10 % of it is the actual execution. I think the biggest thing when you're photographing at night is to be open minded. Sometimes conditions are going to change and your pictures are not going to turn out How you thought despite the biggest amount of planning both with equipment and logistics and weather. And that's something you just have to live with. And you have to enjoy the pursuit and the process of it. [ MUSIC ] There's a few apps I like to use to plan my shoots. The first app that I use it's called Dark Sky Finder which is a map of how bright and how dark places are. I also use an app called Photopills and it actually superimposes a 3- Dimensional view of the sky based on your location and where you are. It'll also show you when it will be completely dark, twilight, sunrise, or sunset so it's a very robust and useful... Useful app for a lot of the timing that is needed to pull off these night shots. [ MUSIC ] Here, natural shake and movement will make image the blurry so having a tripod is critical for longer exposures at night. I've had the same tripod for nine years. and I've beaten it up. It's been all over the world with me and it's well worth the investment. The other important investment you want to make is a full frame camera because it gives you a wider angle of view and also better high iso capability. Start with an iso of 1600 and an exposure of 30 seconds to see how you need to change the exposure to properly Create your vision and the image. When you take a long exposure you're essentially capturing all that light over period of time so what the camera showing is even more enhanced and what we're seeing with the human eye. The technology and the tools are just means to put the vision that's in my mind into to reality [ MUSIC ] Generally speaking I will photograph just under starlight. It's good to have a headlamp or a flashlight that has a red filter or a red lense because the red light allows you to see at night but also retain your vision more strongly. [ MUSIC ] What I like doing too is doing some basic light painting. But I prefer to use a LED light and sometimes fill in the foreground. [ MUSIC ] At the end of the day, this is a creative process. And you don't want to get stuck into one method. Document or photograph things that have a resonance with you. If you feel an emotion to it, or a reaction to it. that might be worth capturing. You want to be so in the zone that you are losing track of time, that you're totally focused and 100 % in on creating something that is wholly uniquely yours. 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