Meteor Shower - Its Not Easy to Photograph

I really enjoyed watching the meteor shower (Perseid's Meteor Shower) with my naked eye. My first one was very bright and short, and then followed by few small ones. I also encountered some bright one and long - right across the sky. The one I saw with my naked eye I did not have chance to capture, but I captured some after all. At first I tried my Sigma wide angle lens hoping I will be able to snap nice piece of sky, but that did not work. However, I got somehow nice photo of the Big Dipper.

Big Dipper, Sky Over Aurora, Ontario, Canada, Aug 12, 2007, 11:54 PM EST

Please note this is my first time ever I actually attempted to photograph the sky, and actually stayed up for few hours. Next time I hope that I can get better grip handling the camera, settings and choice of lens, so I can spend more time aiming. Aiming is difficult because you cannot predict where it will show up - only roughly. Since the wide angle lens was not giving me what I wanted, I had to move on with my 28-80mm lens. This did not give me clear image but stars were more apparent. I kept my shutter opening variable, sometimes for 30 sec, and sometimes for 10 sec, however, I clicked and clicked. Well I think I captured two meteors as you can see on the two photos below. Not that spectacular but hey better than nothing. I believe these are meteors because the first one showed some fading. The second one is more a straight line, but this is because the shutter opening expired, so did not catch the rest.

Sky Over Aurora, Ontario, Canada, Aug 13, 2007, 02:07 AM EST
Sky Over Aurora, Ontario, Canada, Aug 13, 2007, 02:20 AM EST

I also captured few other things. One of them the Earth moving, not shown here. Found that out by playing the photographs in sequence, which I took every 10 or 30 sec. Then I also saw some stuff moving around - I think they were satellites. I saw two synchronized as you will see on two photos below in sequence, and the third one I captured at different time. The shutter was opened for 10 sec. Note smooth straight line for these, as the object was moving at steady speed, not like the meteors zooming by. It was kind of cool following those on the sky, and those cost me a couple of meteors.

Sky Over Aurora, Ontario, Canada, Aug 13, 2007, 03:31 AM EST
Sky Over Aurora, Ontario, Canada, Aug 13, 2007, 03:32 AM EST
Sky Over Aurora, Ontario, Canada, Aug 13, 2007, 03:37 AM EST

Overall, the photograph cannot capture the feeling watching the sky bombarded with long bright tails of the meteors. So next time when you out there watching the sky at night take it to the fullest.

Note I had to adjust contrast or sharpness on the photos so you can see better.