APOD: Meteors over Inner Mongolia (2017 Dec 13)

[APOD Robot]

Meteors over Inner Mongolia

Explanation: Did you ever get caught in a meteor shower? If yes, then every minute or so the sky sparked with fleeting flashes of light. This was the fate of the pictured astrophotographer during last year's Perseids meteor shower. During the featured three-hour image composite, about 90 Perseids rained down above Lake Duolun of Inner Mongolia, China. If you trace back the meteor streaks, you will find that most of them appear to radiate from a single constellation -- in this case Perseus. In fact, you can even tell which meteors are not Perseids because they track differently. Tonight promises to be another good night to get caught in a meteor shower because it is the peak for the Geminids. Gemini, the shower radiant, should rise shortly after sunset and be visible most of the night.

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[Chris Peterson]

The Perseids are a good choice when it comes to making images like this. That's because the radiant of the Perseids is at a high declination, so it moves slowly across the sky. You can make an image several hours long, and the meteors you catch will appear to originate from a quite small patch of sky, making the radiant obvious. Tonight's shower radiant is at a much lower declination, and moves a lot faster. So a long exposure will smear out the radiant more.

[Boomer12k]

So... where are the other ones from?

Nice Image.
:---[===] *

[Fred the Cat]

Outta Mongolia

[Wadsworth]

The video link at the end of today's explanation under 'be visible' shows the peak of the shower to be between the 14th and the 15th, contradicting today's APOD verbiage and a quick google search.

[Chris Peterson]

The video link at the end of today's explanation under 'be visible' shows the peak of the shower to be between the 14th and the 15th, contradicting today's APOD verbiage and a quick google search.

The solar longitude of the Geminid peak is 262.2°, which places the time at UT 06:30 on 14 December 2017. So yes, for most of the world, the peak will occur on the night of Dec 13/Dec 14. That said, the shower is active for a number of days and the peak is broad enough that there's lots of activity on the night before and night after the peak, as well.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

The Perseids are a good choice when it comes to making images like this. That's because the radiant of the Perseids is at a high declination, so it moves slowly across the sky.

Good tip thanks.

[bystander]

Impressive Geminid Meteors to Peak on December 13–14
Sky & Telescope | 2017 Dec 11

[c][attachment=0]Geminids-in-2017-at-9pm[1].jpg[/attachment][/c][hr][/hr]

If it’s clear Wednesday night and Thursday before dawn, keep a lookout high overhead for the "shooting stars" of the Geminid meteor shower. That's the peak night for this annual display.

Sky & Telescope magazine predicts that, if you are viewing under a clear, dark sky, you might see a Geminid meteor every minute or two, on average, from 10 p.m. local time on December 13th until dawn on December 14th. ...

If it's cloudy on the night of the peak, some Geminid meteors should still be visible for a few nights before and after the peak. If you live under the artificial skyglow of light pollution, you'll see fewer meteors overall, but the brightest ones will shine through. This year there'll be no interference from a thin waning crescent Moon, which doesn't rise until after 3 a.m. ...

[Chris Peterson]

This is what I've got from Colorado for the last four nights- 236 meteors (34, 34, 73, 95 last night). I didn't filter out the non-Geminids yet, but most of these are Geminids since the other current showers are fairly low activity.

[olympusmons]

Wow great photo!

Is the photographer standing at a shore? Are they on nice ice?

I'm hung up on the reflection. Is that a big dipper upside down? The star' reflections, due to whatever, look like galaxies. Cool effect.

Also, why do the streaks squiggle in the reflection, as they do here? it's such a chaotic squiggle. Fun!

[scr33d]

Composite images such as this one, even if they disclose themselves as such, should have no place on this site. Science is based on information with no distortion, embellishment, or exaggeration. Constructed and photoshopped images belong on movie posters.

[geckzilla]

Composite images such as this one, even if they disclose themselves as such, should have no place on this site. Science is based on information with no distortion, embellishment, or exaggeration. Constructed and photoshopped images belong on movie posters.

You're gonna have to get rid of a lot of images if you don't accept Photoshopped, stacked exposures. Almost all of them, really. Have fun staring at cosmic rays, though.

[Chris Peterson]

Composite images such as this one, even if they disclose themselves as such, should have no place on this site. Science is based on information with no distortion, embellishment, or exaggeration. Constructed and photoshopped images belong on movie posters.

Here we have no distortion. No embellishment. No exaggeration. What we have is an image designed to show something that we are ill-equipped to see with our senses alone. An image which helps illustrate and clarify a scientific concept. Good science. Rather like the majority of astronomical images, constructed using imaging tools from data we cannot see with our eyes, wavelengths we aren't sensitive to, intensities below our threshold of detection, time scales too great or too small for us to deal with in a single glance.