APOD: Halley Dust and Milky Way (2019 May 10)

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APOD Robot
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APOD: Halley Dust and Milky Way (2019 May 10)

Post by APOD Robot » Fri May 10, 2019 4:09 am

Image Halley Dust and Milky Way

Explanation: Grains of cosmic dust streaked through the mostly moonless night skies of May 7. Swept up as planet Earth plowed through the debris streams left behind by periodic Comet Halley, the annual meteor shower is known as the Eta Aquarids. Though it was made about a day after the shower's predicted maximum, this composite image still captures 20 meteors in exposures taken over a 2 hour period, registered on a background exposure of the sky. The meteor trails point back to the shower radiant near eponymous faint star Eta Aquarii close to the horizon, seen from 100 kilometers south of Sydney Australia. Known for speed, Eta Aquarid meteors move fast, entering the atmosphere at about 66 kilometers per second. Brilliant Jupiter shines near the central bulge of the Milky Way high above the horizon. The Southern Cross is just tucked in to the upper right corner of the frame.

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Re: APOD: Halley Dust and Milky Way (2019 May 10)

Post by Boomer12k » Fri May 10, 2019 8:24 am

Great work...

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De58te
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Re: APOD: Halley Dust and Milky Way (2019 May 10)

Post by De58te » Fri May 10, 2019 10:43 am

Another composite photo! If meteor showers looked like that I'd be pleased. But they don't. If I go out to see the shower on the peak night I'd be lucky to see one in 5 minutes. Usually I am looking in the wrong direction. For example if I was looking at the tree in the photo I would have missed the one at the top. Then ten minutes later the one over the tree would have shown but I had been looking up to the top because I thought I had seen movement out of the corner of my eye. Twenty meteors in 2 hours seems right though, because if they occurred with mathematical frequency, that is 10 an hour, 5 in 30 minutes, or 1 meteor every 6 minutes. Six minutes is a long time just starring up in the sky. If I am out there for 15 minutes, I finally see one. Ooh! There it is, seen it let's go back inside.

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Re: APOD: Halley Dust and Milky Way (2019 May 10)

Post by orin stepanek » Fri May 10, 2019 11:18 am

Nicely done! Meteor showers, not a favorite of mine; but I appreciate the effort spent in making the photograph! 8-)
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Re: APOD: Halley Dust and Milky Way (2019 May 10)

Post by Chris Peterson » Fri May 10, 2019 1:02 pm

De58te wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 10:43 am Another composite photo! If meteor showers looked like that I'd be pleased. But they don't. If I go out to see the shower on the peak night I'd be lucky to see one in 5 minutes. Usually I am looking in the wrong direction. For example if I was looking at the tree in the photo I would have missed the one at the top. Then ten minutes later the one over the tree would have shown but I had been looking up to the top because I thought I had seen movement out of the corner of my eye. Twenty meteors in 2 hours seems right though, because if they occurred with mathematical frequency, that is 10 an hour, 5 in 30 minutes, or 1 meteor every 6 minutes. Six minutes is a long time just starring up in the sky. If I am out there for 15 minutes, I finally see one. Ooh! There it is, seen it let's go back inside.
Yup. Dedicated meteor watching requires a certain passion, and it's a learned skill. I prefer to let my cameras catch meteors. Like you, I usually go outside and watch for a while, and am happy to see one or two. But I do know a couple of serious visual meteor observers. They will lie outside all night, looking straight up, and catch almost every meteor bright enough to be seen, no matter where it is in the sky. They'll record its radiant, its color, its brightness, its light profile.

(I recall the Leonids in 2001, where you could see 20-30 meteors in 5 or 10 seconds. Visually, that shower resembled today's composite. Sometimes there were three of four meteors in the sky at the same time.)
Chris

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