This isn't really photogenic enough for me to post on my project, but I know there are some people here interested in astronomy, and I caught something quite cool last night when I was out photographing the stars.
This is what's known as a meteor train -- it's dust and ionised gas that comes off the meteor as it enters the atmosphere and burns up. This dust and gas can linger for a few seconds or even minutes after the meteor entered the atmosphere. I managed to capture this last night in a sequence of ten 30-second shots, and you can see the meteor hit the atmosphere, and then see the dust and gas as it's dispersed by the high-altitude winds.
This is something I've never seen before, and I only noticed it when I was flicking through my photos on the computer. At first I thought it was a bit of lens flare, but as I continued through it was clear that it wasn't -- and I was able to get in touch with the David Dunlap Observatory on Twitter, who confirmed what it was.
All this is really also just an opportunity to remind people that the Perseid meteor shower is peaking on Monday and Tuesday night, but I've been out both on Wednesday night and last night and there's been a great deal of activity -- so even if you can't get out to a dark location late at night on a workday, if it's clear where you are, consider going out this weekend and looking up. Even if you don't take a single photo, it's an incredible sight!
Way too cool Alexis! I caught this once before and the gasses lingered for quite a long time; incredibly bright too! Thanks so much for sharing, this is fantastic! .... fave. :)
that's incredible! I've always been fascinated with what's happening above - in my 60 years I've seen eclipses and comets, the occasional "falling star" and some meteor showers and i could never get tired of them. we're going out of town for the weekend and hopefully the sky would be clear. while i may not be able to capture anything, at least i'd be able to enjoy the sight, am pretty sure of that. thanks for this, alexis.
Great capture, since the star trails of the meteor shower know as the perseids might be seen tonight as well I might try to watch them today.The perseids are active between July17th and August 22nd , their peakis Aug 11-12 th. Unfortunately the forecast for the next two days is cloudy, so I want to take my chance tonight. Thank you so much for sharing this Alexis
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I've seen lingering light trails when the conditions were just right but never before have I seen them dispersed like this.