I was out most of last night hoping to see the onset of the big geomagnetic storm that space weather forecasters have been talking about for the past couple days. While the storm has not yet hit our atmosphere, the stars and planets were incredibly vivid. Jupiter glowed brightly in the sky just above Orion. As I was driving around waiting for the aurora storms that never came, I stopped at several different locations to take some sky quality measurements.
At one of the stops, I had just set up my camera and started an exposure, then turned to the south to start a series of sky quality readings. As soon as I turned away from the camera, a bright flash of light reflected across the inside of my glasses. I turned back around and as soon as the image finished recording, I hit the Play button on the camera to see what the flash of light was. Turns out I had captured the fragmentation of a meteor as it burned up in our atmosphere! I consulted with my friend "Astro" Bob King and he explained that the double points of light indicate a chunk of meteor that broke off from the main piece as they both burned up. It's the first time I've ever captured anything like that.
No comments:
Post a Comment