Compassionate Rebel

By: Gwendolyn Alley aka Art Predator

Aug 14 2011

Tags: APOD, Perseid meteor shower 2011, shooting star photographs, WordCampSF 2011

Category: Photography

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Have you wished on any stars lately? Go out after dark (after 9pm) and look east before the moon comes up. The Perseid area of the night sky will rise over the horizon and with it bring this year’s meteor shower. Once the waning moon comes up, at least during the next few days, it will drown out the meteors. Wish on one for me, please, our night skies have been so foggy that I haven’t seen any…although I may see one tonight as I drive home from WordCamp 2011!

Castle and Meteor by Moonlight
Image Credit & Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN) Explanation: Each August, as planet Earth swings through dust trailing along the orbit of periodic comet Swift-Tuttle, skygazers enjoy the Perseid Meteor Shower. As Earth moves through the denser part of the comet’s wide dust trail this year’s shower peaks around 6:00 UT August 13 (this morning), when light from a nearly full Moon masks all but the brighter meteor streaks. Still, Perseid meteors can be spotted in the days surrounding the peak. Moonlight and a Perseid meteor created this gorgeous skyscape, recorded in a simple, single, 10 second long exposure on the morning of August 12. Below the moonlit clouds in the foreground are the ruins of a medieval castle near Veszprem, Hungary, seen against the Bakony mountain range. In the night sky above the clouds, the Perseid meteor’s trail is joined by bright planet Jupiter near the center of the frame along with the lovely Pleiades star cluster at the left.