The cool thing about being an adult is that you can make your own choices.

After watching the weather forecast all week and looking at maps and reading reports, I was beginning to realize my plan of catching a train to central Illinois Friday night to photograph the Geminid meteor shower was going to result in a failed experience.

Having one vacation day left and a lighter work schedule, I decided last minute to take Friday off and rent a car, drive home, and photograph Thursday night (into Friday morning) instead. The change of plan payed off and I was rewarded with a couple of shots that I’m really happy with. If I would have stuck to my original plan I would have ended up with some really pretty photos of clouds.

During my Thanksgiving trip I took some time out of my day to photograph some of the areas that I used to spend as a child on the farm. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a scouting mission for me photographing the meteor shower.

Around 10:30pm I arrived home, hung out for about an hour, then headed out to area I thought would provide a nice scene for the stars. Bundled up in multiple layers of clothes, I ended up spending about three-and-a-half hours photographing in the 30 degree temps.

I shot the Perseid meteor shower in August and it was much warmer and an overall more enjoyable experience, but I got some better meteor photographs this time around.

The fourth image is roughly what the sky looked like when I took the first two photographs (created with Stellarium). The fifth image is what the weather looked like at 2am on Friday and Saturday morning (created with Wunderground). The last image is the light pollution in my hometown, as compared to that of Chicago (created with Blue Marble Navigator).