Mike's Astro Photos

Tag: Meteor Photos

Dec.24 2009

Ursids Meteor Shower

by , under Comets & Meteors

The Ursid’s Meteor Shower peaked on Dec 22, 2009. I set my camera up and pointed it near the radiant and shot continuously for several hours on a couple of different nights. While I caught two sporadic meteors during the sessions, the picture below was the only official Ursid that I captured. I spent some time tracing the meteor back to the radiant and I’m 99% sure this is an Ursid meteor.  Here’s the zoom crop of the image. (Its long but faint, you should be able to see it at the top of the image if you click the picture below.)

Ursid Meteor - December 22nd, 2009

Ursid Meteor - December 22nd, 2009 (actually a satellite)

Here is the full image and an annotated version of the full image.

Ursid Meteor - December 22nd, 2009

Ursid Meteor - December 22nd, 2009

Ursid Meteor - Annotated

Ursid Meteor - Annotated



Finally, here is the image roughly plotted in a star chart. By drawing a line along the meteor and back to the radiant, we see the meteor originates at the Ursid’s radiant making it an Ursid meteor.

Ursid Meteor Shower Radiant

Ursid Meteor Shower Radiant

If its not too cloudy tonight, I think I will setup my cameras and see if I can catch Santa’s sleigh streaking across the sky.

Update 12/24/2009: I got some feedback on this picture and its looking like its a satellite trail and not a meteor. For its length if it were a meteor there would have to be more shape to it. Thanks Chris!
I also got some suggestions to check calsky.com & heavens-above.com websites as they offer satellite tracking databases that can be used to identify satellites. I checked calsky.com for the exact time from my latitude and longitude and found an entry that was almost at the same exact location as my picture:

Cosmos 1950
(19195 1988-046-A)
Mag= 4.9m Persei
az: 302.2° WNW h: 72.9° dist: 1547.2km
ra: 2:54.3 de: +46:54

Amazing!

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Dec.17 2009

Meteor Over Observatory

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Here’s a nice meteor picture. Almost makes up for the one yesterday.

Meteor Over Observatory - December 17th, 2009

Meteor Over Observatory - December 17th, 2009

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Dec.16 2009

The one that got away

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I almost cried when I saw this picture on my camera’s LCD a few minutes after it was taken. I was inside while the camera was running and came out to check it. What you see in the top right corner is the tail of a very big fireball. Just this tail is 10x brighter and bigger than every other meteor photo i’ve taken during the last two showers (geminids and leonids). This would have been amazing if I was only two inches further west. DARN!!!!!

Just missed big fireball - December 16th, 2009

Just missed big fireball - December 16th, 2009

A friend sent me this rage guy cartoon. Yes Derek, that’s exactly how I felt. Thanks.

mike_rage_guy_1

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Dec.14 2009

One more Geminid

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Sunday night was the peak of the Geminid meteor shower and there was no moon, which had many people saying this would be the best meteor shower of the year. Unfortunately in Maryland there was heavy cloud cover. This didn’t stop me from staying up all night and trying to catch something. I was watching the skies from inside and around 4 AM noticed a few breaks in the coverage. I setup my camera on the tripod and programmed a series of 2 minute exposures and photographed continuously until dawn. I was able to catch one faint meteor through the clouds.

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 14th, 2009

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 14th, 2009

The above picture is a zoom crop. Here is the full image:

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 14th, 2009

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 14th, 2009

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Dec.12 2009

More Geminid Pictures

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Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Sporadic Meteor - Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Friday night, December 11th 2009 was amazing. There were zero clouds, no moon and lots of meteors and other weird stuff in the sky. You couldn’t have asked for a better night and it will probably be the best of the year as far as viewing conditions and activity go. I had been looking forward to this new moon week since the beginning of the month. Unfortunately based on weather reports it looked like Friday would be the only clear night for the Geminid meteor shower so I planned to put in a full evening.

Earlier in the week I bought a new camera (so I can run two at the same time), a new f/1.6 camera lens and a few new accessories. The plan is to have one camera on the scope photographing DSOs (deep space objects), while the other camera is setup on the tripod trying to get meteors. Everything worked out perfectly, except for a few technical problems that resulted in some bad images. On the scope, I had left my camera ISO on 400, I ended up shooting from 6 PM till 4:30 AM in a low ISO so all of my pics came out pretty dark (darn).

On the tripod, I caught several meteors, but I was still working things out with the new camera and lens and my pics were slightly out of focus (darn again). I always chalk up mistakes like this as good learning experiences, but I’m a little disappointed today after reviewing the pics because they could have been a lot better and I squandered the best viewing night I will have in a few months. Mistakes aside, I shot continuously for 8-10 hours (about 800 pictures) and was able to catch at least 6 meteors, 2 very strange moving objects (maybe satellite flares) and one really weird variable star. I’ll post updates later about the satellite flares and variable stars after I’ve had a chance to research them some. For now here are the best meteor pictures of the night.

Here’s the full picture for the zoom image at the top of this post:

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Sporadic Meteor - Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Here’s a long faint one that stretches across Orion. I tagged the meteor so you can see it easily.

Geminid Meteor - December 11th, 2009

Sporadic Meteor Satellite- Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Here’s a zoom of a short small one,

Geminid Meteor - December 11th, 2009

Geminid Meteor - December 11th, 2009

and the full picture the zoom came from. Note the difference between the way plane trails and meteors look.

Geminid Meteor - December 11th, 2009

Geminid Meteor - December 11th, 2009

Here’s a zoom crop of a sporadic one I think, interesting alignment with the constellation Orion. It should have been going left to right to be considered a Geminid I believe.

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Sporadic Meteor - Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

and the full picture of that one.

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Sporadic Meteor - Geminid Meteor Shower - December 11th, 2009

Here’s another one I found from Thursday night’s session. It is pretty faint, but smack in the middle of the shot.

Geminid Meteor Shower - December 10th, 2009

Sporadic Meteor - Geminid Meteor Shower - December 10th, 2009

I wish I had one more night with this meteor shower, so I could fix some of the tech glitches that impaired these pics, but the mostly cloudy clouds have already rolled in for tonight and its supposed to rain tomorrow. Oh well, there’s always next year.

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Dec.10 2009

Geminid Meteor

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Here’s a Geminid meteor picture I took right before the clouds rolled in December 9th, 2009. I haven’t plotted it in a star map yet, but I’m pretty sure the radiant is Gemini. After looking at the weather reports I’m afraid we will miss the peak of the shower here in Maryland due to rain and clouds so I was happy to have a break in the weather tonight and even happier to get lucky and catch another meteor.

Here’s a zoomed crop of the meteor. This was a 2 minute exposure at ISO 800 using a Canon 40D camera.

Geminid Meteor - December 9th, 2009

Geminid Sporadic Meteor - December 9th, 2009

Here’s the full picture. This was one of the last frames before the clouds came and blocked out the stars.

Geminid Meteor - December 10th, 2009

Geminid Sporadic Meteor - December 10th, 2009

The star in the center of the picture is Capella. The Pleiades is in the lower right.

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Nov.27 2009

Another Leonid

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A Russian astronomer sent out a notice about a newly discovered nova and requested images of Orion between Nov 16th and Nov 19th. Turns out I have 4 pictures of Orion from Nov 17th and the nova was captured in my images! I will post an update with the Orion Nova picture once I have more info and have been able to successfully identify the nova.

While reviewing my meteor shower pictures I found an image of a faint meteor I had originally missed. I haven’t plotted the picture in a star chart yet, so I’m not sure if this is a sporadic meteor or a Leonid. So it turns out I caught at least 2 meteors during the recent Leonid shower, bringing my total meteor picture count up to three.

Leonid - November 17th, 2009

Leonid - November 17th, 2009

The above image is a crop out of the big picture. Here’s what the full image looked like.
Leonid - November 17th, 2009

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Nov.17 2009

Leonids Meteor Picture

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I setup for the Leonids meteor shower last night and was able to capture a picture of one of the meteors. I focused my camera on Procyon thinking it would be a good spot to catch something. I set the camera to shoot repeatedly and waited. As I waited I stared at Procyon, after a few minutes just like that a bright meteor flew out of the sky, its starting place looked to be exactly at Procyon. I waited for the exposure to finish and then eagerly checked the small camera screen, but I didn’t see anything! I was very upset. I started looking at my camera settings and noticed my focal ratio was way to high — f/5. I dropped it down to f/3 (as low as it can go) and continued to shoot the rest of the night with no results.

This morning I was reviewing my pictures on the computer and I saw my Procyon meteor in all its glory. I was so happy! The streak left by the meteor was too faint to see on the camera screen, but I could clearly see it on the computer. I have ordered a new camera lens that has a f/1.4 ratio which should be much better for future meteor shower pictures.

This is my first ever intentional meteor photo. Not as exciting as the last one, but still pretty good for an amateur like me.

Leonids Meteor - November 17th, 2009 12:30 AM

Leonids Meteor - November 17th, 2009 12:30 AM

For reference purposes: I was using a Canon 20D, piggy back mounted on my telescope with ISO 800, f/5 focal ratio and a 60 second exposure.

UPDATE: Robert Lundsford from the American Meteor Society let me know that because of the location of the tail on this meteor, it is considered a sporadic meteor and not a Leonid. I plotted the picture in a star chart to understand what he was saying and I now see what he means. To be a meteor associated with a shower, the meteor has to radiate from a specific central point, in this case Leo. I’m curious to know if sporadic meteor rates increase during a shower though, meaning was this meteor caused from the same dust field that creates the shower, or something totally unrelated.

Here is the star chart plot of the picture. Click to enlarge.

Leonids Meteor Picture Star Map


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