Toccoa Lens Logs Three Halley Debris Meteors
A Georgia photographer captured three bright streaks from the Orionid shower before the event peaked.
By Yuna Fletcher ·
Tim McCollum captured three distinct meteors in the sky above Toccoa, Georgia, in the early hours of Tuesday, Oct. 21. The trails appear in a single composite image that also features deep sky objects like the Orion Nebula. The photo was taken before the annual Orionid meteor shower reached its highest activity.
The bright streaks are particles from Comet 1P/Halley. Although the comet itself is currently more than 3 billion miles away from Earth, the debris it shed over centuries still burns up in the atmosphere. This creates the glowing trails visible to observers on the ground.
McCollum recorded the three events between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Oct. 21. In the image, each meteor appears to move away from a specific point in the sky. This origin point, known as the radiant, is located near the red giant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.
Capturing such fast-moving objects requires precise equipment and timing. McCollum used a Canon EOS Ra camera paired with an RF 28-70 f2.0 lens. He took multiple 30-second exposures while a star tracker kept the camera fixed on the radiant. He later merged the individual frames into one image using PixInsight software.
The photograph contains more than just meteor trails. The stars of Orion's Belt are visible on the right side of the frame, near the glow of the Orion Nebula. The Rosette Nebula, catalogued as Caldwell 49, is also present within the starfield and dust lanes of the Milky Way. The image shows numerous star clusters scattered across the galactic plane.
The Orionid shower will remain active until Nov. 7. This leaves several nights for skywatchers to look for more debris from Halley's Comet. Earth is also passing through streams left by Comet 2P/Encke, which can produce the occasional bright fireball during this time.
McCollum's image serves as a record of the activity leading up to the shower's peak. The three meteors were isolated from the background stars through the use of a star tracker. The final composite shows the density of the starfield in the region.
Source: Space.com
