City - Spruce Knob (4100ft above sea level :o) State - WEST VIRGINIA Country - United States
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The famous Leonid meteor shower! This swarm of dust in our solar system encouners the Earth every November. Normally it provides only a weak sprinkle of a few shooting stars per hour. Not much really. However, every 32 years or so, the comet responsible for sheding this dust (Comet Temple-Tuttle) returns near the Sun (and Earth) and is accompanied by a series of fresh new trails of dust. If the Earth happens to encounter one of these trails, some lucky spectators on the Earth can witness an exceedingly rare and jaw-dropping astronomical event... a true meteor storm... when the skies suddenly fill up with dozens to hundreds of shooting stars every minute!!! On the morning of November 18, 2001 anyone in looking up could see just such a sight. The Eartth went smack into a dense dust filament, and throughout the night observers counted thousands of shooting stars, including fireballs shining brighter than the Full Moon!
As soon as the Leonid radiant rose near midnight, spectacular earthgrazers (meteors skimming the upper atmosphere at a very shallow angle) started to cross dramatic paths into the entire sky, from horizon to horizon. The Leonid in this photo was way too long to fit on a single frame, so this shows just the end path as the meteor disintegrated. It was one of several colorful Leonids that would be seen that night. Photo is a combined effort by Michael F Vasseur and Pierre Martin.
I got very lucky to capture that bright meteor, indeed! I think what helped is that as the radiant cleared the horizon around midnight, there was huge earthgrazing meteors coming every few minutes, and crossing a good 2/3 of the entire sky! I've never seen so many in so little time - and at one point I lost my voice from yelling so much in all my excitement.
But normally, the fireball is always tries to appear opposite way where the camera's pointing (Murphy's Law). The way to beat that is to setup a battery of cameras in a circle for a full sky coverage. I'm hoping to gather enough photographer friends for the upcoming Perseids to try just that )
Luck was with you that night to capture such a bright meteor. I was guiding an astrophoto last summer and I noticed the ground brighten. I thought I was caught in a car's headlamps, but when I turned around, I saw the ionization trail of a particularly bright meteor still glowing in the sky. Too bad my camera was pointed 90 degrees away from this event...
You know Pierre, this shot reminds me of those old scifi movies of the 50's, 60's and 70's. All the colours, especially the background sky, and the meteor just make it work.
I know I already commented, but I can't help it.... I like your work!
As for witnessing future meteor storms, I hate to say it but you're gonna need to be around in 2098 to see the Leonids at least comparable to the levels that they were in 2001. The bad news is the poor intersections of the orbits in the years 2033 and 2066 means that not all that much is likely to happen for those years.
But there's good news. Other showers are capable of storming in the nearer future. And thanks to the "dust trails theory", astronomers can predict where and when Earth will encounter the known trails with an amazing accuracy...
- Draconids, October 8 2011 - good for Europe - possibly 2000-8000 meteors per hour.
- Draconids, October 9 2018 - good for America or Europe - possibly 800-4000 meteors per hour.
- Schwassmann-Wachmann3-ids, May 31 2022 - good for America - the parent comet broke up a few years ago and this encounter will go right into all of the ejected dust so meteor rates could be *very* substantial.
- Perseids, August 12 2028 - good for America - 1000+ meteors per hour.
But these predictions are still just.... predictions. They can change or be refined as time goes. Also, there's LOTS of dust trails we don't know about yet that just wait to be discovered. Suprises are always possible too.
Sorry for rambling... you know... if you get me talking on meteors I can easily go on and on... ;o)
This is an absolutely stunning shot! Compositionally perfect, and it shows incredible detail in the meteors tailings. Exceptionally well done!!! I'm very pleased to see you posting these. Thanks!
It's a dream of mine to witness at least one meteor storm before I fade away. Hopefully with some new found information you provided me, and anything more you care to share I will realize this dream. Besides I'm sure we'll have a blast chasing some of these events down )
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{K:1990} 5/19/2005