View larger. | Composite image, acquired during the 2015 August Perseid meteor shower, by Matt Dieterich. He calls the photo ‘Skyfall.’ Visit Matt’s website or Facebook page.
Matt Dieterich submitted this composite image to EarthSky this week. It’s from the 2015 Perseid meteor shower in August, typically one of the year’s best showers. Matt wrote:
Talk about a night to remember! The morning of Thursday August 13, 2015 the Perseid meteor shower peaked. I was working at Mt. Rainier National Park and created this image from a 2-hour-long time-lapse video to record as many Perseid meteors as possible.
The alignment of our Milky Way was situated perfectly vertical over Mount Rainier, an active volcano.
Between 2 and 5am we counted over 200 meteors! Unfortunately, the camera recorded only about 40 of them.
Nikon D750 and Rokinon 24mm F/1.4
Each image with a meteor was manually aligned on one main star field to place meteors in their respective locations in the night sky.
Deborah Byrd (asteroid 3505 Byrd) helps edit EarthSky.org and is a frequent host of EarthSky videos. Deborah created the EarthSky radio series in 1991 and founded EarthSky.org in 1994. Prior to that, she had worked for the University of Texas McDonald Observatory since 1976, and created and produced their Star Date radio series. She has won a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, including having an asteroid named in her honor in 1990, a Public Service Award from the National Science Board in 2003, and the Education Prize from the American Astronomical Society in 2020. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a force for good in the world and a vital tool for the 21st century. "Being an EarthSky editor is like hosting a big global party for cool nature-lovers," she says.
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