Mike's Astro Photos

My wife Tracy and I just back from a nine day trip to Europe. We went primarily to photograph the peak of the Draconid meteor shower which was predicted to be abnormally high this year. Unfortunately, the skies over Europe were blocked out with clouds for seven of the nine days we were there, including both nights of the peak. This was ok though, because our secondary mission was to have a good time, and we did do that.

We stayed at a 5 star mountain resort in Greece located in the mountains above Delphi. The first night we arrived, after traveling for over 20 hours I was immensely tired, but the skies were perfectly clear and beautiful and dark and I had to take advantage (i’m glad I did, as this was our only clear night!). Here’s a two minute exposure taken from the deck off of our room after the moon set.

Milkway over Parnassos Mountains - Arachova Greece - October 7th, 2011

The next day we scouted out possible locations to observe the meteor shower including the ancient Greek city and ruins. Here are a few shots from some of our potential locations.

Parnasso Mountains

Road to Delphi

Sanctuary of Apollo

The Sanctuary of Athena, as seen from Apollo’s ruins

Sanctuary of Athena - Delphi Greece

Here are a few more pics of the ruins…

Apollo Temple

Sanctuary of Apollo

Treasury of the Athenians

I explained to Babis Taglis, the owner of our awesome Greek resort, what I was trying to do and he offered to drive around with me and show me some good locations to shoot from. He put a lot of thought into it and took me to some awesome spots. We literally drove to the top of the Parnasso mountain 6200+ feet up!

Babis Taglis - Tagli Resort & Spa

There was a service road to the top made of mostly softball sized rocks with the occasional bowling ball boulder in the middle of the road! At certain points I thought the car was going to flip backward. I pushed the rented Mercedes SUV to the limit. The car barely worked in ‘auto’ mode and continued to stall out trying to get up the hill, but when I put it into dedicated 4×4 it worked pretty good. Here are a few pics from the peak of the mountain.

Parnasso Mountain Peak

Both nights of the Draconid meteor shower were completely clouded out.

Ancient Greek Church

But I did see this cool falling rocks sign…

Falling Rocks - Delphi Greece