Halley's Debris Streaks Over Georgia
An astrophotographer captured three Orionids from Toccoa as the annual shower built toward its peak.
By Alexander Novak ·
Astrophotographer Tim McCollum recorded three bright Orionid meteors streaking above Toccoa, Georgia, during the early hours of Oct. 21. The display came as the annual shower was building toward its peak. McCollum captured the meteors between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. local time.
The meteors are particles shed by Comet 1P/Halley, popularly known as Halley's Comet. The comet itself currently sits more than 3 billion miles from Earth. The debris it released in past orbits still intersects our planet's path each autumn, burning up in the atmosphere to produce visible trails.
In the image, three Orionids appear to race away from the shower's radiant. That point of apparent origin sits near Betelgeuse, the red giant star in the constellation Orion. McCollum shot multiple 30-second exposures using a Canon EOS Ra camera and an RF 28-70 f2.0 lens. A star tracker kept the camera aligned on the radiant, and the individual frames were later merged into a single composite using PixInsight software.
The composite image contains more than the meteor trails. Orion's Belt appears on the right side of the frame, close to the glow of the Orion Nebula, one of the nearest major star-forming regions to Earth. The Rosette Nebula, catalogued as Caldwell 49, is visible within the dense starfield and dust lanes along the Milky Way's galactic plane, which crosses the frame diagonally. Several star clusters are also present in the image.
The Orionids remain active through Nov. 7. Observers during the coming nights can still watch for debris from Halley's Comet. Earth is also currently passing through debris streams from Comet 2P/Encke, which produce the Taurid meteor shower. That stream can produce the occasional Halloween Fireball.
Source: Space.com
