Geminid Bolid at Mercedes
A meteor shower is produced when Earth glides across debris from a comet or asteroid, the tiny fragments that are only a few inches long burn in the atmosphere producing meteors. Sometimes a bigger fragment grazes thru the atmosphere producing a bolide: a bigger, brighter meteor but even those are not big enough to reach the surface. In the case of the geminids the debris was originated by an asteroid named 3200 Phaeton, it’s the only meteor shower not originated from a comet. The first photo shows a bright bolide above the setting moon.
The Geminids are usually the best meteor shower of the year. In the southern hemisphere the radiant is not very high in the sky but high enough to produce many meteors and the temperatures are warm as the event takes place on summer time.
The Geminids at Orion
The photo shows the Orion belt with the flame nebula and horsehead nebula and the big and bright M42 nebula. 10 meteors crossed the field of view in a 20 minutes time span. That’s a high rate and was probably the peak of the meteor shower from my location. The gaps in the meteor trails are produced by a 1 second delay between exposures and in some way help to see the speed of the meteors. The one in the top left corner was specially bright and fast.
Geminid Meteor at the Pleiades
This meteor crossed the pleiades cluster M45 coming from the Geminids radiant in the Gemini constellation. It has a notorious green tint, geminids are usually yellow/green. Not all the meteors came from the radiant there were many errant meteors. The best way to make sure you don’t miss a meteor is to use a fisheye lens pointed straight up at the zenit to make sure you cover as much of the sky as possible. I’ll try that approach next time to see how many meteors I can get.
Geminid Meteor at Mercedes
This ultra wide view shows a bright bolide near the horizon. The sky features several constellations and objects including Orion, Taurus with the Pleiades and Hyades cluster, Gemini, Hydra and more. This was just before dawn and the horizon was starting to get bright so the meteor must have been really big and bright.
Meteor showers are fun to watch and fun to photograph, it’s a hunting exercise as you have the camera constantly shooting trying to get a meteor, they are so fast that the only way to get them involves a little luck. For unknown reasons the Geminids are getting better and better year after year so we can just start to wait for the 2011 show.
For more photos you can always check my website: http://www.luisargerich.com
