Solar System - Meteors
Perseid Meteor Shower over Dinosaur Park
A composite showing about three dozen Perseid meteors accumulated over 3 hours of time, compressed into one image showing the radiant point of the meteor shower in Perseus. This was August 12, 2021, from The Trail of the Fossil Hunters trailhead lot in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. A dim magenta aurora is visible to the northeast at left. Cassiopeia is at centre above the radiant point; the Andromeda Galaxy is just right of centre. Capella is rising at left. Airglow also tints the sky. This is a blend of: a single 30-second exposure for the background sky, one with the aurora at its most active, such as it was this night, with a stack of 8 x 30-second exposures for the ground to smooth noise. Then 32 x 30-second exposures for the individual meteors (a couple of frames have two meteors on them) are overlaid with Lighten blend mode onto the base sky image, each with masks to reveal just the meteors. All frames were with the Canon R6 at ISO 6400 and with the TTArtisan 11mm fish-eye lens at f/2.8. The camera was on a static tripod, not tracking the sky, so I hand-rotated all the meteor frames around Polaris at upper left, to bring them into close alignment to the base sky image, so the positions of all the meteors are close to their actual positions in the starfield when they appeared. A couple of exceptions were the meteors at bottom which appeared in Taurus, below the horizon at the time the sky image was taken, so those meteors are moved up artificially. ON1 NoNoise applied to the sky image. Ground illumination is from starlight.
The Radiant of the Perseid Meteors
A composite blend illustrating the radiant point of the Perseid meteor shower in Perseus at left, taken on the night of the peak, August 12, 2021, ffrom Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta. A couple of non-Perseid meteors also appear in the scene. The brightest Perseid, at bottom, left a yellowish ionized trail that appeared on several frames. Bands of red and green airglow tint the sky. The Pleiades are just rising at bottom, as is Capella in Auriga at lower left. Cassiopeia is above the radiant point. The Andromeda Galaxy is at centre. This is a stack of 27 x 1-minute tracked exposures at ISO 3200 with the Canon 6D and Rokinon 14mm SP lens at f/2.8, on the Star Adventurer tracker, for the sky and meteors, blended with a stack of 4 x 2-minute untracked exposures for the ground, taken at the beginning of the sequence. With all the sky images taken on a tracker, they all align and so the meteors do appear where they actually did against the background stars, preserving the effect of the radiant.
A selfie of me setting up to photograph the 2021 Perseid meteor shower on August 12, 2021 at Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta, as one camera captures the scene looking east while I finish setting up another camera in the foreground. The radiant of the shower is obvious, in Perseus, at lower left in the northeast. The Milky Way stretches from northeast to southwest (top right). A dim red aurora is on the horizon to the northeast. Cygnus is overhead at centre. Jupiter is the bright object above me. The Big Dipper is at upper left low in the northwest. This is a blend of 24 exposures taken over 3 hours, with the foreground coming from one image at the start of the sequence which had a meteor in it. The other 23 images add the other meteors, so this blend compresses 3 hours of meteor activity into one frame. All were with the TTArtisan 7.5mm circular fish-eye lens at f/2 on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 3200 for a series of 30-second exposures, 316 in all over 3 hours, from which the 24 with meteors were extracted for stacking with Lighten blend mode. The camera was on the Star Adventurer Mini tracker to make alignment of the meteors easier in post-production, so the meteors are where they appeared in the sky relative to the background stars. This lens does not fill the frame; it is a circular fish-eye but at f/2 faster than any other fish-eye that fits on a full-frame camera, with the speed essential for picking up meteors. I was setting up another tracker to take shots with a 14mm lens.
Comet NEOWISE and Ursa Major Over Mount Wilson (July 26, 2020)
Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) on July 26, 2020 from Saskatchewan River Crossing in Banff National Park, Alberta. The comet is just about to set behind Mount Wilson, the iconic peak in the area. A meteor appears at top in the image framed to include the Big Dipper and the constellation of Ursa Major. While the comet was fading, its blue ion and white dust tails still show up well. It was from near here that scientist and explorer James Hector, member of the 1858-59 Palliser Expediton, observed Comet Donati on September 10, 1858 as they made their way up the valleys of the Bow, Mistaya, Howse and Saskatchewan Rivers, as part of a British scientific expedition to map the area and much of southern Alberta. This is an exposure blend of a stack of 4 x 2-minute untracked exposures for the ground at ISO 800 (exposed long to bring out ground details), with 3 x 30-second tracked and stacked exposures at ISO 1600 for the sky. I shot short exposures for the sky to catch the comet before it set. The meteor was on one frame of the sky stack layered and blended in separately. The camera was on the iOptron SkyGuider Pro tracker. For the ground shots I simply turned the tracker motor off. All with the 35mm Canon lens at f/2.8 and Canon EOS Ra. Topaz Sharpen AI applied to the ground. In camera LENR employed on all shots on this warm night. Shot from the parking lot of the Howse Pass Viewpoint area off the Icefields Parkway.
A capture of two Lyrid meteors on April 20, 2020, the night before the peak of this annual meteor shower. I shot 250 frames over more than two hours and captured only these two Lyrids streaking away from the radiant point in Hercules west of Lyra and the bright star at centre, Vega. A couple of other streaks are from a satellite and aircraft. A dim aurora lights the sky at left to the north. This view is looking east but the wide fish-eye lens takes in a sweep of almost 180 degrees. Each exposure is 30 seconds at ISO 3200 with the Rokinon 12mm full-frame fish-eye lens at f/2.8 and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.
Comet Wirtanen with Meteor and the Dark Clouds of Taurus
This is Comet Wirtanen 46P in Taurus on December 14/15, 2018 accompanied by a meteor, caught by chance of course. The meteor has left a yellowish “smoke” cloud. Yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades are at bottom, the pink California Nebula (NGC 1499) is at top, in Perseus, while the blue Pleiades are at centre. They form a nice colour contrast with the cyan-green comet. The Taurus Dark Clouds of interstellar dust are at left. Comet Wirtanen was two days before its closest approach to Earth and nearly at its brightest. It was visible to the unaided eye. I got a chance to capture this and other views after Chinook clouds cleared off near midnight on Dec 14/15. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800 with the Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8. The meteor is from one of those frames. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker.
Meteor, Comet, Stars, and Nebulas!
This is Comet Wirtanen 46P in Taurus on December 14/15, 2018 accompanied by a Geminid meteor, caught by chance of course. Yellowish Aldebaran and the Hyades are at left, the pink California Nebula (NGC 1499) is at right, in Perseus, while the blue Pleiades are at centre. They form a nice colour contrast with the cyan-green comet. The Taurus Dark Clouds of interstellar dust are at top. Comet Wirtanen was two days before its closest approach to Earth and nearly at its brightest. It was visible to the unaided eye. I got a chance to capture this and other views after Chinook clouds cleared off near midnight on Dec 14/15. This is a stack of 5 x 2-minute exposures with the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 800 with the Sigma 50mm lens at f/2.8. The meteor is from one of those frames. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker.
Geminid Meteors and Comet Wirtanen (Dec 12, 2018)
A composite of several exposures to stack images of five Geminid meteors into a wide view of the winter sky with Comet Wirtanen at upper right in Taurus, taken on December 12, 2018. The meteors are shooting away from the radiant point in Gemini near the bluish-white star Castor at left. The Milky Way runs vertically through the frame from Auriga at top to past Orion at bottom. All the images for the base sky layer and the meteors were shot as part of the same sequence and framing, with a 24mm lens and Nikon D750 on a Star Adventurer tracker. The camera is unmodified so the red nebulosity in this part of the sky appears rather pale. Capella and the Pleiades are at top, Orion is at bottom, Taurus is at centre, while Gemini and the radiant point of the shower is at lower left. The Taurus Dark Clouds complex is at upper centre. All exposures were 30 seconds at f/2 and ISO 1600. I started the sequence with the camera framing this area of the sky when it was just rising in the east in the moonlight then followed it for 4 hours until clouds moved in. So all the images align, but out of 477 frames shot only these 5 had Geminid meteors. Images layered and stacked in Photoshop.
Sweeping Arc of the Northern Lights
The grand sweep of the aurora borelis across the northern and northeastern sky, from Tibbitt Lake near Yellowknife, NWT, on September 8, 2018. The Big Dipper and Polaris are at left; Auriga and Taurus are rising at right, with Capella, Aldebaran and the Pleiades coming up in the east. Cassiopeia and Perseus are at top in the Milky Way. There’s a meteor streaking down at top as well! This is a mean-combined stack of 8 exposures for the ground to smooth noise, and one exposure for the sky, all 15 seconds at f/2.8 with the 12mm Rokinon full-frame fish-eye lens, and Nikon D750 at ISO 6400. This was part of a time-lapse, taken before the arc swept overhead while it was still across the north and east.
Perseids over Star Party (August 10, 2018)
The Perseid meteor shower over the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party, on August 10, 2018, with an aurora as a bonus. The view is looking north with Polaris at top centre, and the Big Dipper at lower left. The radiant point in Perseus is at upper right. The sky also has bands of green airglow, which was more prominent in images taken earlier before the short-lived aurora kicked up. The aurora was not obvious to the naked eye. However, the northern sky was bright all night with the airglow and faint aurora. This is a composite of 10 images, one for the base sky with the aurora and two faint Perseids, and 9 other images, each with Perseids taken over a 3.3 hour period, being the best 9 frames with meteors out of 360. Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2 with the 15mm Laoawa lens and Sony a7III at ISO 4000. I rotated all the additional meteor image frames around Polaris to align the frames to the base sky image, so that the added meteors appear in the sky in the correct place with respect to the background stars, retaining the proper perspective of the radiant point.
Perseid Meteor and Observers at Star Party
A Perseid meteor streaks down the Milky Way over the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan, at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, a Dark Sky Preserve. The Milky Way shines to the south. About 350 stargazers attend the SSSP every year. Observers enjoy their views of the sky at left while an astrophotographer attends to his camera control computer at right. This is a single exposure, 25 seconds, with the Laowa 15mm lens at f/2 and Sony a7III camera at ISO 3200.
A Busy Sky – Mars, Meteor, Milky Way and Iridiums!
A busy sky with bright red Mars rising east of the Milky Way, while a pair of Iridium satellites flare briefly as they travel in unison up along the Milky Way from south to north. Meanwhile, about 20 minutes later a very bright meteor flared and produced a lasting train of “smoke”, seen at left and composited in from two later frames – but with it located where it appeared, above Mars. But to be clear — the meteor did not appear at the same time as the Iridiums. Nevertheless, this captures the fact that there were a lot of satellites and meteors this night, on a very clear though short summer night. It was a busy sky! The Iridium trails come from 5 exposures masked and layered onto a single base image of the sky, to minimize star trailing. I say they are Iridiums as they have all the hallmark of such, but no Iridium flares were predicted for this time and position, so they could be another pair of satellites. But they do seem like Iridiums and these will be among the last such flares, as by year end the first generation of flaring Iridiums will have been de-orbited, replaced by a new style of satellite whose design does not produce flares. So “Flare-well” Iridiums! Each exposure was 30 seconds at f/2.8 with the Sigma 24mm Art lens and the Nikon D750 at ISO 3200. They were taken as part of a 200-frame time-lapse. Taken from home in Alberta on July 9-10, 2018 as part of some technique testing.
Geminid Meteors over the Chiricahuas
A trio of Geminid meteors over the Chiricahua Mountains in southeast Arizona, with Orion and the winter stars setting. I shot this at the end of the night of December 13/14, 2017 with the rising waxing crescent Moon providing some ground illumination. This is a stack of one image for the ground and two fainter meteors, and another image with the bright meteor. The camera was on a Star Adventurer Mini tracker so the stars are not trailed, though the ground will be slightly blurred. Orion is at centre, going down. Sirius is at left and the Pleiades and Hyades at right. All were 30-second exposures at f/2.8 with the 24mm Canon lens and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 5000. Taken from the Quailway Cottage.
A composite of the 2017 Geminid meteor shower, from the peak night of December 13, with the radiant in Gemini, at top, high overhead. So meteors appear to be raining down to the horizon. This was certainly the visual impression. At least one meteor, at left, is not a Geminid, as it does not point back to the radiant. The Milky Way runs diagonally across the frame, from Puppis at lower left, to Auriga at upper right. Orion is at centre. Gemini is at top. This is a stack of 24 images, some with 2 or 3 meteors per frame, each a 30-second exposure at f/2.5 with the Rokinon 14mm SP lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 6400. The images are the 24 frames with meteors out of 171 taken over 94 minutes from 2:05 am to 3:39 am MST. The ground is a stack of 8 images, mean combined to smooth noise. The background base-image sky is from one exposure. The camera was on a fixed tripod, not tracking the sky. I rotated and moved each image in relation to a base image in order to place each meteor at approximately the correct position in relation to the background stars, to preserve the effect of the meteors streaking from the radiant near Castor at top of the frame. Taken from Quailway Cottage, near the Arizona Sky Village in southeast Arizona, with a view looking southwest toward the Chiricahua Mountains. From this latitude, Canopus appears low above the southern horizon at left.
Geminid Meteor Shower in the Winter Milky Way
The Geminid meteor shower of December 13, 2017 in a view framing the winter Milky Way from Auriga (at top) to Puppis (at bottom) with Gemini itself, the radiant of the shower at left, and Orion at right. The view is looking southeast to the Peloncillo Mountains in New Mexico though the site at Quailway Cottage is in Arizona, near Portal. This is a composite stack of one base image with the brightest meteor, then 20 other images layered in each with a meteor. The camera was not tracking the sky, so I rotated and moved each of the layered-in frames so that their stars mroe or less aligned with the base layer, to ensure the meteor streak ended up in the correct location with respect to the stars and to the radiant point, illustrating the radiant in Gemini above Castor. The images for this composite were taken over 107 minutes starting at 11:18 pm MST, with 22 images containing meteors picked from 196 images in total over that time. Each exposure was 30 seconds with the Rokinon 14mm SP lens at f/2.5 and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 6400.
Geminid Meteor Radiant in Gemini
A composite showing the 2017 Geminid meteors streaking from the radiant point in Gemini at upper left, above the blue-white star Castor. 2 or 3 meteors are not Geminids as their paths do not project back to the radiant, but I have left them in regardless, as an illustration. This also illustrates how the meteor paths are shorter closer to the radiant and lengthen away from the radiant. This is a stack of 43 exposures, each 1-minute with the 24mm Canon lens at f/2.5 and filter-modified Canon 5D MkII camera at ISO 6400, set fast to pick up the fainter meteors. These were 43 exposures with meteors (some with 2 or 3 per frame) out of 455 taken over 5 hours. Orion and its red nebulas are at right. The Beehive star cluster, M44, is at lower left. Sirius is the bright star at lower right. The camera was on a Star Adventurer Mini tracking unit, so all the frames more or less aligned when stacked with the meteors in the correct relative position. The background sky comes from just one of the exposures. All the other frames are masked to show just the meteor. Taken December 13/14, 2017 during the very active 2017 Geminid meteor shower, and shot from Quailway Cottage in southeast Arizona, near Portal.
A composite of the 2017 Geminid meteor shower, from the peak night of December 13, with the radiant in Gemini, at centre, rising in the northeast at the beginning of the night. Meteors are streaking from the radiant point above Castor in Gemini, with meteor streaks longer the farther they were from the radiant point. The Milky Way runs diagonally across the frame, from Auriga, at top, to Canis Minor, at bottom. This is a stack of 40 images, each a 30-second exposure at f/2.5 with the Rokinon 14mm SP lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 6400. The images are the 40 frames with meteors out of 357 taken over 3 hours and 16 minutes from 7:54 pm to 11:10 pm MST. The ground is a stack of 8 images, mean combined to smooth noise. The background base-image sky is from one exposure. The camera was on a fixed tripod, not tracking the sky. I rotated and moved each image in relation to a base image and around Polaris at upper left, in order to place each meteor at approximately the correct position in relation to the background stars, to preserve the effect of the meteors streaking from the radiant near Castor at centre of the frame. Taken from Quailway Cottage, near the Arizona Sky Village in southeast Arizona, with a view looking northeast, toward the nearby towns of Lordsburg and Deming, NM adding the sky glows.
Bright Geminid Meteor Descending
A single bright meteor from the Geminid meteor shower of December 2017, dropping toward the horizon in Ursa Major. Gemini itself and the radiant of the shower is at top centre. Leo is just rising at bottom centre. Procyon is at upper right. I shot this from the Quailway Cottage in southeastern Arizona, on December 12, 2017. It is one frame from a 700-frame sequence for stacking and time-lapses. The ground is a mean stack of 8 frames to smooth noise. Exposures were 30 seconds at ISO 6400 with the Rokinon 14mm lens at f/2.5 and Canon 6D MkII.
Perseid Meteor Shower at Dinosaur Park (Tracked)
A composite of the Perseid meteors over Dinosaur Provincial Park on the night of August 12/13, 2017. A faint aurora is on the northern horizon at left. The meteors are accumulated over 3 hours of time –– recording 14 meteors extracted from a total of 645 images. One meteor obligingly appeared at centre that was particularly bright and left a long-lasting “smoke” train. The Double Cluster in Perseus is the diffuse spot at centre near the radiant. This is a composite of a single image for the ground and sky taken as the start of the sequence, layered with 14 other images of meteors taken over 3 hours, masked to reveal just the meteor. The camera was on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini tracking device to follow the sky, so the stars in each frame remained in alignment throughout the 3 hours of shooting. So the meteors are in their accurate places in the sky relative to the background sky, retaining the effect of the radiant point in Perseus at centre. However, the composite is a bit of a cheat in that the waning Moon rose about 30 minutes after the sequence of 645 frames started, brighening the sky a lot. So most of the meteor images had to be colour adjusted to make them blend into the “start-of-the-night” dark sky background well. The shower was not so active that this many meteors were visible during the brief hour or so of dark sky this night before moonrise. So the image is not a realistic depiction of the night, but serves as an illustration of the shower radiant over a scenic landscape with the aurora a bonus. Each image was 15 seconds at f/2.2 with the Sigma 20mm Art lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 3200.
Perseids over Moonlit Wheatfield
A composite of the Perseid meteor shower on the night of August 11/12, 2017, taken from home in rural Alberta, over a wheatfield with the waning Moon rising at right. The radiant point in Perseus is just left of centre. M31 is right of centre; Cassiopeia is above centre. As usual, there is one imposter satellite above the radiant looking like a meteor moving in the right direction, but with a uniform trail that gives it away as a satellite. The Moon was a waning gibbous this night. This is a composite of 19 images: one for the foreground and sky and one meteor, and 18 for other meteors layered in using Lighten mode and masked to reveal just the meteors. The camera was not tracking the sky, so the meteor layers were all rotated around Polaris at upper left to place the meteor for that frame in the correct position in the sky relative to the background stars where it appeared, to preserve the perspective of the radiant point in Perseus, which rose through the night. The images were taken from a full set of 700 images taken over 4.5 hours from 10:42 pm to 3:04 am. The base image is from 11:46 pm just after moonrise. Each exposure was 20 seconds at f/2.5 with the Rokinon 14mm lens and Canon 6D MkII at ISO 3200. I used the camera’s internal Interval Timer set to 22 second interval for shots as quickly as possible with a mimumum of “dark time.”
A bright bolide meteor and “smoke” trail south of the southern Milky Way as Crux and the Pointers rise in the east on a clear Australian night. Jupiter is the bright object at left. This is a stack of 8 x 45-second untracked exposures for the ground, mean combined to smooth noise, and one 45-second exposure for the stars and main bolide trail. The yellow ion train was added in with another exposure taken a couple of minutes later as the train began to blow away from the meteor path. That layer is masked to reveal just the train. All frames taken as part of a 500-frame time-lapse sequence of the Milky Way rising.
Radiant of the Perseid Meteor Shower (2016)
A composite of the Perseid meteor shower, on the peak night, Aug 11/12, 2016, looking northeast to the radiant point in Perseus left of centre, with the Pleiades and Hyades clusters in Taurus rising. There are 33 meteors here. Note the fairly consistent green to red tint of each meteor streak. A couple of streaks look more white and might be flaring satellites though their trajectory matches where a Perseid should be. The sky is also filled with bands of red and green airglow which in the time-lapse sequence are moving from south to north, right to left here. The airglow was bright enough that it was visible to the unaided eye as grey bands in the sky, especially the “cloud” around the Pleiades. The reddish/orange patches at upper left are the remains of a long-lived “smoke” trail from an expoding meteor earlier in the evening, which I of course missed capturing. This was taken from the Dark Sky Preserve of Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan, from the trailhead parking lot at the end of the 70 Mile Butte Road. This is a stack of 31 frames containing meteors (two frames had 2 meteors), shot from 1:13 am to 2:08 a.m. CST, so over 55 minutes. So considering the camera would have missed the fainter meteors and is seeing only one section of the sky, 33 meteors over 55 minutes is a great count, translating to perhaps ~ 100 to 150 over the whole sky? This is from latitude 49° N. The camera was not tracking the sky but was on a fixed tripod. I choose one frame with the best visibility of the airglow as the base layer. For every other meteor layer, I used Free Transform to rotate each frame around a point far off frame at upper left, close to where the celestial pole would be and then nudged each frame to bring the stars into close alignment with the base layer, especially near the meteor being layered in. This placed each meteor in its correct position in the sky in relation to the stars, essential for showing the effect of the radiant point accurately. Each layer above the base sky layer is masked to show just the meteor and is blended with Lighten mode. If I had not manually aligned the sky for each frame, the meteors would have ended up positioned where they appeared in relation to the ground but the radiant point would have been smeared — the meteors would have been in the wrong place. Unfortunately, it’s what I see in a lot of composited meteor shower shots. It would have been easier to have had this camera on a tracker so all frames would have been aligned coming out of the camera. But the other camera was on the tracker! The ground is a mean combined stack of 4 frames to smooth noise in the ground. Each frame is 30 seconds at f/2 with the Sigma 20mm lens and Nikon D750 at ISO 5000. The waxing Moon had set by the time this sequence started, leaving the sky dark and the airglow much more visible.
Perseid Meteor Shower Looking North (2016)
The 2016 Perseid meteor shower, in a view looking north to the Big Dipper and with the radiant point in Perseus at upper right, the point where the meteors appear to be streaking from. I shot this on the peak night of the shower, August 11/12 after moonset so the sky was dark and in fact filled with bright airglow, appearing here as bands of green and yellow, mixed with a low-level aurora to the north as well. While it looks like the sky has artificial light pollution, the glows here are natural, from aurora and airglow. The Big Dipper is at bottom, pointing up to Polaris and the Little Dipper at upper centre. Perseus is at far upper right. This was from the Dark Sky Preserve of Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan, from the trailhead parking lot of the 70 Mile Butte Road. This is a stack of 10 frames, shot over one hour from 1:38 a.m. to 2:37 a.m. CST. The camera was on the Star Adventurer tracker so all the sky frames aligned. The ground is from a stack of four frames, mean combined to smooth noise, and taken with the tracker motor off to minimize ground blurring, and taken at the start of the sequence. All exposures 40 seconds at f/3.2 with the 16-35mm lens and Canon 6D at ISO 6400.
A lone Perseid meteor streaking down below the radiant point in Perseus, with the sky and landscape lit by the waxing gibbous Moon, August 11, 2016. Perseus is rising in the northeast, Andromeda is at right, with the Andromeda Galaxy right of centre. Cassiopeia is at top. Taken from the 70 Mile Butte trailhead in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan.