Everyone loves a good meteor shower. Seeing shooting stars rain down from the heavens just mesmerizes us. As an amateur astronomer, I try my best to see them when I can.
Meteor showers roughly occur at the same time every year. Each shower is made of debris in space that the Earth passes through at regular intervals. The larger and denser the debris cloud is, the more spectacular the meteor shower will be. The showers are normally named for the constellations they seem to emit from. I missed watching the Leonids in November due to overcast skies. The Leonids normally put on a very good show but I was not able to watch it. The optimal viewing time for the Geminids occurred around midnight on the night of December 13-14. The night did not look promising because of the weather. It had been raining all day and later became quite foggy. However, I got a break when the eastern horizon cleared up around 1 o'clock and stayed relatively clear until 2. During that time, I saw about 20-30 meteors of all sizes and colors. One of my goals was to take a picture of a meteor which is quite the difficult task. The Geminids took up almost the whole eastern horizon so it was difficult to find a single spot on which to train my camera. Very early in the year I tried to take a picture of the Quadrantids in January. That shower was easier due to the fact that the meteors came from a very compact region in the northwest sky. It is difficult to capture meteors on camera because the light from them does not last very long. But I was pleased with the little bit of the shower I got to see. Hopefully the weather and moon will cooperate for the Quadranids in early January. See if you can spot the meteor in this picture (Trust me, there is one there).
Meteor showers roughly occur at the same time every year. Each shower is made of debris in space that the Earth passes through at regular intervals. The larger and denser the debris cloud is, the more spectacular the meteor shower will be. The showers are normally named for the constellations they seem to emit from. I missed watching the Leonids in November due to overcast skies. The Leonids normally put on a very good show but I was not able to watch it. The optimal viewing time for the Geminids occurred around midnight on the night of December 13-14. The night did not look promising because of the weather. It had been raining all day and later became quite foggy. However, I got a break when the eastern horizon cleared up around 1 o'clock and stayed relatively clear until 2. During that time, I saw about 20-30 meteors of all sizes and colors. One of my goals was to take a picture of a meteor which is quite the difficult task. The Geminids took up almost the whole eastern horizon so it was difficult to find a single spot on which to train my camera. Very early in the year I tried to take a picture of the Quadrantids in January. That shower was easier due to the fact that the meteors came from a very compact region in the northwest sky. It is difficult to capture meteors on camera because the light from them does not last very long. But I was pleased with the little bit of the shower I got to see. Hopefully the weather and moon will cooperate for the Quadranids in early January. See if you can spot the meteor in this picture (Trust me, there is one there).
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