APOD: Geminid Meteors over Teide Volcano (2013 Dec 17)

[Chris Peterson]

I just went to the photographer's website (http://www.starryearth.com) - pretty amazing. After seeing more of his work, I'm more convinced that my first guess (way back when) might be right. The many meteor images were recorded in separate exposures but on the same frame, and not in a large number of separate frames that would have to be synchronized which strikes me as a pretty greulling task. I've used the technique of capturing multiple phases of a lunar eclipse on one frame as does the photographer on his site. This still requires tracking over the 2.5 hrs, and the landscape would have to be recorded separately, or as Chris suggests, only in the last image captured. The other thing that occurred to me is that any time that I have observed meteor showers, I always see a few sporadics. It's interesting that in fifty-some exposures, the photographer appears not to have captured a single sporadic meteor. Too bad - I think that would have made the photo even more interesting.

There had to be quite a few non-Geminids in the image. They were probably removed before being stacked.

[Gea]

50 geminid meteors I count.