Mike's Astro Photos » Meteor Photos

Geminid Meteor Shower Photos 2011

Mike Hankey — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:21:00 +0000

Last night was the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. I setup my camera around 8:00 PM and photographed continuously through the night. The sky was clear until about 2:00 am and then covered with clouds for the rest of the evening. I was able to catch a total of 11 meteors in that 6 hour window. That’s pretty good considering there was a near full moon for most of the evening.

Here’s my final composite holding 7 of the best images from the night.

Composite of Geminid Meteor Shower - Dec 13th, 2011

I used a Canon 5d Mark II camera with a fisheye 15 MM 1:2.8 lens. The extra large CCD inside the mark II used with the fish eye lens allows you to capture the whole sky. This really improves your odds of catching meteors! Here’s another Geminid meteor pic which shows the field of view through this system.

Geminid Meteor - December 13th, 2011

Milky Way Meteor

Mike Hankey — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:52:52 +0000

We were without power for 3-4 days this week due to hurricane Irene. The power outage coincided with the new moon phase leaving the skies in northern Maryland darker than I have ever seen before. I was a little bummed that I couldn’t fire up the observatory, so I made the most of it and took some tripod shots of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Here’s a lucky shot of a bright meteor, low on the horizon. Based on the elevation angle of 8º and assuming a 80km starting point for illuminated flight, this meteor would have been about 569km SE of my location or half the distance between Maryland and Bermuda.

Milky Way Galaxy and Meteor - August 28, 2011 11:28 PM EST

Here’s the meteor at full zoom resolution. At a magnitude of 2.0, the bright star directly above the meteor is Diphda.

Milky Way Galaxy and Meteor - August 28, 2011 11:28 PM EST

Here’s another shot of the Milky Way Galaxy from the backyard.

Milky Way Galaxy - August 2011

The power went out early sunday morning. I finally got a generator on Tuesday. The first thing plugged into the generator was my observatory. I was happy to learn that all equipment and PC fired up and operated perfectly on the generator power.

Milky Way Galaxy from Freeland Observatory - August 2011

We were happy to get our power turned back on Wednesday night. Many thanks to all of the utility workers from around the country who came to the east coast to fix our power lines. You guys are much appreciated! I’m hoping hurricane Katia will be a dud or misses us.

Perseid Meteors – 2011

Mike Hankey — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:42:00 +0000

I imaged the Perseid Meteor Shower three nights this week capturing an average of four meteors each night. Here are the best two from the peak night. Both are fairly large, bright and long.

Perseid Meteor High Res - August 12th, 2011

I think this one may be a small fireball. You can see Cassiopeia in the shot for reference.

Perseid Meteor - August 12th, 2011

Some light cloud cover rolled in but it wasn’t enough to block this Perseid .

Perseid Meteor - August 12th, 2011

Here’s the full sized picture:

Perseid Meteor - August 12th, 2011

2011 Quadrantids Meteor Shower

Mike Hankey — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:43:03 +0000

The 2011 Quadrantids Meteor Shower peaked this morning at 1:00 a.m.

I took photos last night continuously from about 8:00 PM till dawn and only caught one meteor, but it was a good one.

Quadrantid Meteor - Jan 4th, 2011

Here’s the meteor at full resolution:

Quadrantid Meteor - January 4th, 2011

To see the full shot, click here.

The cool thing about it is, the meteor left behind a visible smoke trail that showed up in 20+ consecutive frames after the flash. That’s more than 10 minutes! Its hard for me to say for sure, but I think this may have been a fireball.

Here’s an animated sequence of about 10 frames that shows the smoke trail left by the meteor.

Quadrantid Meteor Animation - Smoke Trail

This shower will be active until January 10th and with all the fireball activity happening lately, it is worth checking out!

Photo Details
Canon 50d DSLR
25 Seconds @ ISO 800
Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 fish eye lens
Mounted Piggy Back to CGEM

UPDATE: 1/4/2010

As I was driving home today I realized that I would have probably caught this picture on one of my new security cameras. I knew the exact time was 2:43, so when I got home I checked the video log. Sure enough, I just barely caught it at the edge of the screen.

Look in the center top of the video to see the fireball at the 2 second mark. You may need to replay the video a few times to get it.

Double Geminid

Mike Hankey — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:59:21 +0000

Over 2 nights of mostly cloudy weather I was able to capture 21 total meteor photos (out of 2000+ images). One of these exposures caught two meteors within the same shot (a 25 second time frame).

Doubel Geminid - December 15th, 2010

Photo Details: Canon 40d camera with Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 fish eye lens; 25 second ISO 800 exposure

Geminids 2010

Mike Hankey — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:55:25 +0000

The Geminid Meteor Shower peaked before dawn this morning and observers around the globe are reporting one of the best showings in years boasting rates of over 100 meteors per hour. The east coast and much of the country was under clouds and snow storms. I setup my camera while it was cloudy hoping conditions might change. Fortunately between 2:30-4 am the clouds cleared up a bit and in that 1.5 hours I photographed 13 meteors. Its cloud tonight, but I’m trying the same plan again. Here’s one of the photos from last night. I’m still processing the other pictures and will post more later.

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 15th, 2010

Big Moon Meteor

Mike Hankey — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:52:34 +0000

The full moon on January 30th, 2010 was the biggest and brightest it will be all year according to space.com. The moon travels in an elliptical orbit around the Earth and it is closer at some times than others. About 2 times a year this closeness coincides with a full moon and that’s what happened Saturday night. Despite the extra big full moon I tried doing some meteor photography Sunday night. I actually caught a couple. You can see in this picture the moon is huge. Part of this is due to the 25 second exposure, but even still, that’s a big moon.

Big Moon Meteor - January 31st, 2010

here’s a closeup of just the meteor. I’m surprised it was even visible with the light from the moon.

Big Moon Meteor - January 31st, 2010

Meteor & Plane

Mike Hankey — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:27:42 +0000

Here’s a cropped picture of a sporadic meteor from 4:20 am on January 10th, 2009.

Sporadic Meteor - January 10th, 2009 4:20 AM

Here’s the full picture. The trail on the left is a meteor. The small red line in the bottom center of the picture is a plane.

Sporadic Meteor - January 10th, 2009 4:20 AM

Sporadic Meteor – January 10th, 2009

Mike Hankey — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:58:10 +0000

Here’s a sporadic meteor inside the constellation Canis Major (the dog). The bright star to the right is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

Sporadic Meteor - January 10th, 2010

Here’s the full picture:

Sporadic Meteor - January 10th, 2010

Two Sporadic Meteors

Mike Hankey — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:25:05 +0000

Here are two sporadic meteors I captured during the Ursids Meteor Shower. These are not Ursid meteors because they to do radiate from the right place in the sky, therefore they are called sporadic meteors. Below is a zoom crop of the first one.

Sporadic Meteor - December 24th, 2009 2:21 AM EST - Zoom Crop

Below is the full image. Ursa Major (The Big Dipper) is clearly in view. This seemed like a good place to photograph based on the location of the radiant.

Sporadic Meteor - December 24th, 2009 2:21 AM EST

After taking 1000+ pictures near the Ursids radiant I gave up and decided to try my luck on the western horizon above the observatory. I’m glad I did because I caught this picture.

Meteor or Iridium Flare - December 24th, 2009 4:24 AM EST

I think this is a meteor but it looks a little bit like an iridium flare. Iridium flares are bright bursts of light caused by the reflection off of a specific type of satellite. Iridium flares have a distinct look that is similar to this image. I checked the calsky.com website for satellites and it did not look like any satellites were in this part of the sky at this time, so I’m not sure if this is a meteor or a flare. Here is a zoom crop of the image that shows a bit more detail:

Meteor or Iridium Flare?