APOD: Orionid Meteors from Orion (2017 Oct 30)

[APOD Robot]

Orionid Meteors from Orion

Explanation: Meteors have been shooting out from the constellation of Orion. This was expected, as October is the time of year for the Orionids Meteor Shower. Pictured here, over a dozen meteors were caught in successively added exposures last weekend over Wulan Hada volcano in Inner Mongolia, China. The featured image shows multiple meteor streaks that can all be connected to a single small region on the sky called the radiant, here visible just above and to the left of the belt of Orion, The Orionids meteors started as sand sized bits expelled from Comet Halley during one of its trips to the inner Solar System. Comet Halley is actually responsible for two known meteor showers, the other known as the Eta Aquarids and visible every May. Next month, the Leonids Meteor Shower from Comet Tempel-Tuttle should also result in some bright meteor streaks.

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[heehaw]

Wouldn't it have been interesting if evolution had developed in us the ability to see the sky as in this photograph, i.e. with colors e.g.? Not necessary for survival so we don't have it. What would it have taken? It is surface brightness, so it is tricky.

[ptirnovan]

I cannot find the website of Lu Shupei! Can anyone help me with his adress? I'm looking for more photos like that!

[tetrodehead]

Nice pic!
Exposure and processing details would be interesting.

[saturno2]

beautiful image of "fireworks"

[BDanielMayfield]

Wouldn't it have been interesting if evolution had developed in us the ability to see the sky as in this photograph, i.e. with colors e.g.? Not necessary for survival so we don't have it. What would it have taken? It is surface brightness, so it is tricky.

Can any nocturnal creatures see the sky like this?

Don’t think it would be a good trade though. Daytime would be blinding. We’d have to live like bats.

Bruce

[Chris Peterson]

Wouldn't it have been interesting if evolution had developed in us the ability to see the sky as in this photograph, i.e. with colors e.g.? Not necessary for survival so we don't have it. What would it have taken?

It really comes down to how many photons you can collect. The eye only detects between 1% and 5% of the photons it receives. A good CCD detects close to 100%. So with a better designed retina, we could do much better. We also have a tiny aperture to admit those photons- just a few millimeters, compared with tens to hundreds of centimeters for telescopic optics. So if we had huge, bulging eyes we could do much better. And finally, our retinal chemistry yields an exposure time of tens of milliseconds, compared with minutes or hours for electronic imaging systems. If we could selectively increase our integration time, we could do much better.

[rstevenson]

This sort of eye might help...

alien eye.jpg (11.31 KiB) Viewed 5690 times

Rob

[bystander]

I cannot find the website of Lu Shupei! Can anyone help me with his adress? I'm looking for more photos like that!

It's not a web site. It's an e-mail address. Send an e-mail.

[Ann]

Wouldn't it have been interesting if evolution had developed in us the ability to see the sky as in this photograph, i.e. with colors e.g.? Not necessary for survival so we don't have it. What would it have taken? It is surface brightness, so it is tricky.

Can any nocturnal creatures see the sky like this?

Don’t think it would be a good trade though. Daytime would be blinding. We’d have to live like bats.

Bruce

Right you are.

Today's APOD is a very nice image!

Ann

[jisles]

Judging from the photo, the radiant is above and to the left of Betelgeuse, and not near Orion's Belt as stated in the caption.

[neufer]

Judging from the photo, the radiant is above and to the left of Betelgeuse,
and not near Orion's Belt as stated in the caption.

The APOD doesn't really say 'near' and Orion's Belt is more readily recognizable.

[color=#0000FF]The Orionid meteor shower has several radiants in northern Orion near the feet of Gemini. They all drift about 1° eastward per day (as indicated by dashed arrows) due to Earth's orbital motion: S&T: Gregg Dinderman[/color]

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2014’s Orionid Meteor Shower
By: Kelly Beatty | October 19, 2014

<<The Orionid shower is a long-lasting affair that runs from roughly October 17th to 25th and peaks around the morning of the 21st. This shower is actually a complex of several threads of debris that arrive over several days. These radiants (the points in the sky from which the meteors appear to radiate) are grouped near Orion's club.

Since Orion doesn't rise in the east until around midnight, you'll have to stay up at least that late (or get up very early) to see any Halley bits flashing across the sky. For observers around 40° north latitude, the shower's radiants rise high in the eastern sky (at least 45° up) by about 2 a.m. So that's about when the meteor activity is best. Dawn's twilight begins stealing into the east about four hours later.

Like the Eta Aquariids, the Orionids tend to be faint and swift, as they strike our atmosphere at 66 km per second (only November's Leonids come in faster) — and they often leave briefly glowing trains.>>

[Fred the Cat]

Meteor? Doubt it but either nose cones aren't very tough or there are some big birds out there.

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Meteor?

Doubt it but either nose cones aren't very tough or there are some big birds out there.

[Ann]

Judging from the photo, the radiant is above and to the left of Betelgeuse,
and not near Orion's Belt as stated in the caption.

The APOD doesn't really say 'near' and Orion's Belt is more readily recognizable.

Yes, because Orion's Belt is the only place in the entire sky where we can see three bright stars in an almost perfect row.

Ann

[jisles]

The caption said: "here visible JUST above and to the left of the belt of Orion".