Falling Fire

A bright shooting stars of the Leonid meteor shower is falling through the Orion constellation.
Every 33 years, the Leonid’s are causing a cosmic firework with a meteor storm of more than 100.000 shooting stars per hour. The next occurrence will be in 2034. The Leonid’s are named after the constellation Leo from which they appear to radiate in all directions. The particles of this meteor shower originate from the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Each year, around 17 November the earth crosses the dust trail of this comet with occurrences of usually 10 to 100 shooting stars per hour. They are among the fastest known shooting stars with speeds up to 70 kilometers per second (44 miles per second) and are on direct collision course with Earth’s orbit.
This bright shooting star and its less bright companion crossed the Orion constellation from left to right. The head of the shooting star was glowing in bright green with an extended orange glowing trail. The afterglow of the trail was visible for a couple of seconds
Orion consists of the four bright corner stars Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Saiph, and Rigel, three belt stars, and the bright Orion nebula with the famous Horsehead nebula and Barnard’s loop. The latter is the red semicircle of glowing hydrogen gas caused by an explosion within the Orion nebula three million years ago.

November 2009
Canon 5D MkII, Canon EF-L 24-105 mm, f/4, 6 minutes, ISO 1600, tripod, AstroTrac TT320 astronomical mount
Starscapes Gallery » Falling Fire