The Perseid meteor shower delights stargazers every August, with its peak in mid-August bringing dozens of shooting stars per hour. Amateur photographers can capture these magical celestial moments with the right techniques and preparation.

During the Perseids in August, up to 60 meteors per hour can be visible, with the highest activity occurring during the night of August 12-13. Whether using a professional camera or smartphone, successfully photographing these spectacular sky events requires following several key guidelines.

Location is crucial for meteor photography. Choose a spot with minimal light pollution, which means getting away from urban areas and heading into nature where the night sky is darker and clearer. This will allow the meteors to stand out more dramatically against the starry backdrop.

Stabilization is essential for long-exposure photography. Use a tripod or find another stable object to keep your camera or smartphone completely steady during the extended shooting times required for meteor photography.

Turn off all automatic settings and disable the flash. Automatic modes will interfere with the specialized settings needed for night sky photography, and flash will be completely useless for illuminating objects millions of miles away.

Select a short focal length lens, or in extreme cases, use a fisheye lens to capture the entire sky. This wide-angle approach increases your chances of catching meteors no matter which direction they streak across the heavens.

Set a moderate ISO number between 200 and 400. This range provides good sensitivity to light while minimizing digital noise that can ruin the quality of your images.

Choose a long exposure time of 30 seconds or longer. This extended exposure allows you to capture the brief trails of light that meteors create as they burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

According to Carolin Liefke, deputy director of the House of Astronomy in Heidelberg, smartphones can also produce excellent sky photographs. Most smartphone lenses already have relatively short focal lengths or dedicated wide-angle lenses, which works to the photographer's advantage.

Several smartphone apps can enhance your meteor photography capabilities. Apps like ProCam for iOS or ProCam X for Android allow users to manually adjust exposure duration. The built-in camera app on iOS devices can also expose for several seconds when using night mode. Google's Pixel smartphones feature a dedicated astrophotography mode specifically designed for capturing celestial events.

Liefke recommends an unconventional but practical approach to meteor photography: shoot continuously and delete the images without meteors afterward. Since it's impossible to predict exactly when meteors will appear, this spray-and-pray method increases your chances of success. She suggests taking numerous photos throughout the night and sorting through them later.

For even more impressive results, Liefke recommends combining multiple images during post-processing. 'What you can do very beautifully in image editing afterward is overlay several of these images,' she explains. 'Then you have multiple meteors in one picture,' creating a composite image that shows more celestial activity than any single exposure could capture.

This year's meteor photography faces an additional challenge from bright moonlight. August 9 marks the full moon, according to Liefke, and during the night of August 13, there will be a waning three-quarter moon. While the constellation Perseus, from which the meteors appear to originate, is better visible during the second half of the night, the moon will also be prominent during these same hours, potentially washing out fainter meteors and reducing contrast in photographs.

Despite the lunar interference, the Perseid meteor shower remains one of the most reliable and spectacular annual celestial events for photographers of all skill levels. With proper preparation, equipment settings, and patience, both amateur and experienced photographers can capture stunning images of these cosmic visitors streaking through Earth's atmosphere.