Posted on 12/17/2020 4:48:16 PM PST by MtnClimber
Explanation: Taken over the course of an hour shortly after local midnight on December 13, 35 exposures were used to create this postcard from Earth. The composited night scene spans dark skies above the snowy Italian Dolomites during our fair planet's annual Geminid meteor shower. Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major and the brightest star in the night, is grazed by a meteor streak on the right. The Praesepe star cluster, also known as M44 or the Beehive cluster, itself contains about a thousand stars but appears as a smudge of light far above the southern alpine peaks near the top. The shower's radiant is off the top of the frame though, near Castor and Pollux the twin stars of Gemini. The radiant effect is due to perspective as the parallel meteor tracks appear to converge in the distance. As Earth sweeps through the dust trail of asteroid 3200 Phaethon, the dust that creates Gemini's meteors enters Earth's atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per second.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then zoom by moving the magnifying glass over an area and then clicking. The side bars will move the zoomed area over the photograph.
Did I miss anything? I was taking a meteor shower.
I guess it’s better than Uranus’s Klingon’s.
Sirius is 25 times as bright as the sun (or would be if they were the same distance from us), so I don’t think it will be seriously hurt by being grazed by a meteor streak.
I want to be there, in that cabin, NOW.
Wow! Its like long glass pipe chandeliers hanging from the Stellatum!
Nice!
One of two things. Alien starships attacking earth or our enemies have launched nuclear weapons at us.
I watched for a while and did not see any meteors at all.
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