My alarm goes off – it’s 2 a.m. Monday and freezing cold in the alpine terrain even in the height of summer.
I start to drift off again until a loud “whoa” rouses me from my sleep and out of my tent, which is pitched in a meadow near the top of Timber chair at Fernie Alpine Resort.
Above me, the night sky is blanketed with stars, the clouds and smoke haze of earlier disappearing just in time for the peak of the Perseid meteor showers.
The clearing is situated on the aptly named Falling Star ski run and dotted with bodies wrapped in sleeping bags as my fellow campers get comfortable for the annual celestial event, their cameras and faces turned upward.
Another meteor streaks across the inky black sky, evoking more gasps of wonderment and leaving a glowing train that is visible long after the initial shower.
“What you’re actually seeing when you’re watching a meteor shower is the pieces of the comet’s debris,” explained camp host Aly Hatchard earlier that night.
“Heating up as they enter into the earth’s atmosphere, they burn up in a bright burst of light, streaking a vivid path across the sky as they travel at a speed of 59 kilometres per second.
“In space, this debris is called a meteoroid, but when it reaches the atmosphere it is now called a meteor and if that piece actually makes it all the way down to earth its called a meteorite.”
The Perseids are named as such because the point from which they appear to hail lies in the constellation Perseus.
They are associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle, which, according to Hatchard, is the largest known object to repeatedly pass by earth.
“A typical Perseid meteor moves at 214,365 kilometres per hour when it hits the earth’s atmosphere and is more than 1600 degrees celsius, so that’s really hot,” she told the group gathered at Lost Boys cafe.
Forty-eight people attended the Perseid Meteor Shower Viewing and Mountaintop Campout at FAR on Sunday, which was close to selling out.
After setting up our tents, my fellow campers and I had the option of joining guided hikes to the Lost Boys Lookout and Mammoth Droppings, a cluster of giant boulders that have toppled from the imposing Mammoth Peak.
We then enjoyed a hearty dinner of shish kabobs, salad and stuffed baked potatoes on the deck of Lost Boys, the city of Fernie and surrounding valley shrouded in smoke from nearby fires.
Later that evening, clutching steaming cups of tea in our cold hands, we brushed up on our night photography skills with local professional Matt Kuhn, who shared his tips on capturing the meteor showers.
“There are two ways to shoot meteors – one, you can leave your shutter open for a long time and things pass through it, and get picked up,” said Kuhn.
“If you brought lots of batteries and multiple cameras, it’s a great way to do it. If you didn’t, you take short blasts. Usually you want less than 25 second long exposures otherwise the stars turn to Tic Tacs.”
As the night wore on, my friends and I stole away to our tents to catch a brief few hours’ sleep before the celestial action got underway.
We arose the next morning, sleep-deprived but ecstatic after witnessing dozens of meteors, tucking into a continental breakfast at Lost Boys before descending Timber chair to the resort base.
The Free Press attended the Perseid Meteor Shower Viewing and Mountaintop Campout compliments of FAR.
Matt Kuhn’s recommended camera settings for night photography
ISO – 3200
Aperture – f2.8
Shutter speed – 25-30 seconds
Focus – manual
