|
Credit & Copyright: Chen Huang-Ming
Explanation:
In the early morning hours of November 19,
amateur Chen Huang-Ming caught a sky filled with
astronomical wonders.
With his
fisheye camera set up on Ho-Huan Mountain in
Taiwan for a half-hour exposure,
he started the above image a local time of 2:33 am.
First, the many famous stars and nebulas captured are
too numerous to count.
Planets
Jupiter
and Saturn are
visible, while the
plane of our
Milky Way Galaxy sweeps diagonally across the image.
What makes this image most spectacular, however,
are the over 100
bright meteors visible from the
2001 Leonids Meteor Shower.
The meteor shower is caused by the
Earth plowing through a
stream of sand-sized ice particles shed years ago by
Comet Tempel-Tuttle.
Note that the
meteors can all be tracked back to a
radiant in the constellation Leo, the
direction from which the
particles orbit the Sun.
|
January February March April May June July August September October November December |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: fisheye - Leonids - galactic plane
Publications with words: fisheye - Leonids - galactic plane
See also: