I'm setting up the telescope and tripod ready for tonight, and I'm hoping to capture a few meteors.

In broad strokes can anyone give me a idea of the best settings to use?

As I understand it, 800 ISO, a fast wide lens (hoping the 14-42mm is up to it), a remote shutter release and long exposures seem to be the way forward, but I'm still a camera noob and I don't want to miss out.

I thought a high ISO and long exposure would be a bad idea, as you'd get a lot of noise?

Is the f3.5 14-42mm a better option than the f4 40-150mm?

Any advice would be great.

Cheers

Spreadie

It depends on it's aperture. Use your lens wide open, which is what I'd be doing if it wasn't cloudy where I am. I don't know how well your camera deals with image noise so I can't really comment on that.
Tripod, cable release and long exposures are the way to go.

Mark

Without a remote shutter release I would be limited to a 30s shutter max. As you would expect to see one perseid every minute that should be enough to capture something with a few attempts. You may also need to account for the Earth's rotation.

I have remote release - £3 bargain on ebay.

So far, I have set it SH spot metering, which i think should darken the background?
30 sec bulb
ISO 800
3.5 apeture
MF

Oh, and I've taken to swearing every time someone puts a light on in the house.

[edit] clouds!!11one one

Fuse box!

No - stick to ISO100 or lower if you can and amend the exposure time accordingly

Just on my way out now to show you all how it's done Not sure the cloud will allow me though...

Al

Why such a wide aperture? I'd instinctively have gone low ISO, narrow aperture, long exposure. It's what I do with fireworks.

The light from fireworks is so much more than that from a streak of meteor in the atmosphere. A wider aperture also allows you to get background stars.
I'm only saying what I'd do. A wider aperture also means less exposure time = less grain in the final image.

Mark

Like you care about grain/noise! (8-p)

(8+D

Mark

With a 10-30s exposure on a 600mm lens you can easily see star trails. You'll get sharper images wide and fast.

I'd be using a wide angle lens to cover as much of the sky as possible.

Mark

Why sharper when wide? Most lenses seem to have a sweet spot around f/8 -> f/11 -ish. I'm a bit confusled!

Sixty long exposure shots later, and I got one faint meteor on camera (plus a couple of planes trying to get in on the action)

Oh well, it was fun to watch at least.

Those planes can be sneaky when taking images of the night sky.

Mark