Up early - 2:30AM start.

This is the earliest I have been up in a long time. What is the saying? Nothing good ever comes from being up after 3AM?

My alarm goes off and I make haste to get ready as quietly as possible to let the rest of the household sleep in peace. I am tested though when I step on that one piece of Lego in the dark that had not been put away.

Pushing through the pain of standing on the Lego, and the desire just to get straight back into my nice warm and comfy bed, I get into the car and start the drive. Tonight, I am chasing meteors.

For the last few years, this meteor shower has popped into my social feeds. And to be honest, every year I am disappointed with the outcome. Whether it be a cloudy night, or I go somewhere (read my backyard) with too much light pollution from the city. This year I was going to turn this around and make it work for me.

The GPS was set, and off I went. One hour to my destination, The Glass House Mountains. It was a nice easy drive, not much traffic unsurprisingly. I mean who is crazy enough to be on the roads at this hour of the night?

Mount Coonowrin to the left

After turning off the Bruce Highway I meander through the State Forest to my location. The Glass House Mountains Lookout. It is at this point that I normally start to freak myself out. Do I want to be alone at the lookout and be jumping at the shadows and every little noise that is made? Or do I want to see people at the lookout and deal with unknowing of if these are crazy people?

The car park is dark and there are heaps of cars. Four or five park cars. Good sign or bad sign? I am not sure at this stage, my senses are heightened. I turn the car off and get out thinking all kinds of crazy things. This is why I have stopped listening to true crime pod casts.

What is the first thing I hear when get out and stand by the car? There is a conversation about cemeteries and dead people. Great. I am here with the crazy people. But then I spot the tripods and cameras, and by this time the conversation had moved on. They were probably thinking ‘who is this crazy guy standing by his car just staring at’ us in all honesty.

Getting more comfortable with the location I get my camera gear out and look for a composition overlooking the Glass House Mountains. It is about now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark and I realise there are lots of clouds about. My heart sinks. I have driven all this way and it is cloudy. My bed was rather cosy.

One of the only shots of the meteors I managed to capture.

Whilst I am waiting around contemplating whether to stay or go because of the clouds, another group of people turn up. Quite a popular spot this has turned out to be. This time the group was not photographers, rather just some people out for a good time. At 4AM? Oh, to be young again.

I make the decision to stay, the clouds look like they are clearing. Worst case I will get to enjoy a sunrise looking out over the mountains. By the time the clouds start to clear the moon is up. Although the moon is not at its brightest, it is still bright enough to make it difficult to see and photograph the meteors. I end up looking to the west away from the Glass House Mountains. Not the scene I was planning on but hey. Better than nothing.  I end up capturing some decent photos of the Milky Way but with nothing really in the foreground though. On looking closure at the photos, it looks like I got more satellites the meteors.

As the horizon in the east starts to brighten with the rising sun, the Milky Way fades and I turn my attention to the sunrise. I started off with capturing the sunrise with my wide angle lens. The photos were ok but the clouds were only on a small strip of the horizon and with the mountains off in the distance there was lots of empty space in the top of each photo. What should I do now? I attach my 105mm macro lens to the camera. Not your normal landscape lens but none the less it got the effect I wanted.

There was lots of colour in the clouds. I don’t normally make the effort to get out of bed for sunrises but standing there watching the sun come up, with the clouds turning orange, pink and red, I think I will have to make more of an effort to get up for more sunrises.

The sun was up, the day had officially started, and I had to make a move to be back in Brisbane in time for my kids sports. Off I went, but not before I make a detour to look at some different spots to capture Milky Way over the Glass House Mountains. Fingers crossed I found a new spot.

All in all a great night/morning out capturing the Glass House Mountains.