Tag: meteor

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)—I

There is a new comet currently visible through telescopes, binoculars and long-exposure photographs in the morning skies—and there are expectations that the comet will become bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye in the coming weeks.

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) with M3 and two meteors at 0450 MST 03 December 2021.
Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) with M3 and two meteors at 0450 MST 03 December 2021.

Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) was discovered by G. J. Leonard at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in early January 2021. The comet will make its closest approach to Earth on 12 December 2021 (~35 million km). It will make its closest approach to the Sun on 3 January 2022 and then will head out of the Solar System.

It has a current estimated magnitude of around +6 and is expected to brighten to +4 as it nears the Sun. Some forecasts call for a brightening to magnitude +2 making it visible even in the twilight hours. It is becoming likely that this will be the brightest comet of 2021.

This was my first attempt to photograph the comet. It was barely visible in binoculars (7×50) but was easily seen with even a short exposure on the camera. I set the camera to take 60 second exposures for an hour—at which time astronomical twilight would begin to brighten the eastern sky.

The photograph at the top was taken just a few minutes after the start of the session and shows two meteors (one bright and the other fairly dim) passing through the same portion of the sky as the comet. Also visible in the photograph is Messier 3 (M3 or NGC 5272), a globular cluster made up of around a half million stars.

Photo details: Nikon D750, Nikkor 180mm ED AI-S, ƒ/2.8, ISO 1600, 60 seconds; tracking with an iOptron Sky Tracker.

Below is a time-lapse animation of the images collected during that hour. The comet is moving at an ultrafast speed of ~71 km/second relative to Earth and that fast motion is easily seen in the animation.

Time-lapse imagery showing the motion of the comet from 0450–0550 MST on 03 December 2021.

I hope to have more opportunities to photograph this comet in both the morning sky and later in the month in the evening sky—especially if it brightens significantly.

Perseid Meteors of 2013

Well — that was fun!

Clouds and thunderstorms during the day and evening gave way to mostly clear to partly cloudy skies after midnight. So I set up the camera to take continuous photographs then combined the best images to make this composite image. This spans a period of about 2 ½ hours in the early morning hours of 12 August.

These images were shot looking to the west at the Milky Way allowing the meteors to move from the radiant in the constellation Perseus (in the northeast part of the sky) overhead and then descend in the western sky.

Perseid meteors of 2013.
Perseid meteors of 2013.

The weather was better in the early morning of 13 August but there were fewer meteors. A reasonable tradeoff. Here are a few individual images zoomed in and cropped from both nights of shooting.

Perseid meteors of 2013.
Perseid meteors of 2013.
Perseid meteors of 2013.
Perseid meteors of 2013.
Perseid meteors of 2013.
Perseid meteors of 2013.

Perseid meteor shower

Did you get a chance to view the Perseid meteor shower this year? It peaked on the evening of August 12-13 but meteors were visible for many days preceding the peak. With the moon just a few days past new and setting early the skies were very dark for optimal viewing. A maximum rate of more than 100 meteors per hour has been reported with this years event. This compares with a more typical maximum rate of about 50-80 per hour. So this was a better than average event with higher numbers as well as very dark skies.

Triple planetary conjunction of Venus, Mars, and Saturn along with the crescent moon.
Triple planetary conjunction of Venus, Mars, and Saturn along with the crescent moon.

But to make things even better there was a three-way planetary conjunction taking place at the same time. In the western sky after sunset an observer could see the planets Venus, Mars, and Saturn close together along with the crescent moon.

For the meteors, I used a 28mm wide angle lens, ISO 3200, f/4.0, and 30s exposures. I set the camera to continuous shooting mode and let it run until the card filled a few hours later. I then reclined on a lounge chair with a sleeping bag draped over me.

Two Perseid meteors streak across the early morning sky a few days before the peak.
Two Perseid meteors streak across the early morning sky a few days before the peak.
Perseid meteor passes by the constellation Pleiades.
Perseid meteor passes by the constellation Pleiades.
Perseid meteor streaks across the Milky Way with the San Francisco Peaks on the horizon.
Perseid meteor streaks across the Milky Way with the San Francisco Peaks on the horizon.

Even though I saw a large number of meteors with my eyes — and some of them were spectacular long-path events with residual debris trails — the camera captured far fewer because the field of view of even a wide angle is not wide enough to view the entire sky