Geminids
| The Geminids are a meteor shower caused by the object 3200 Phaethon which is most probably an asteroid. The Geminids are the only known meteor shower not originating from a passing comet. The meteors from this shower are slow moving and can be seen in December, they peak in the night of December the 14th. |
Geminids 2010
| On December 12 I was imaging IC1805 and during the imaging session, at 23:05 UT, a very bright Geminid meteor (I guess it was app. magn. -4) sweeped through my FOV. I thought it would not impact my photo as I used an 7nm H-alpha filter. After exposure I checked the photo and I was stunned, there it was. I checked if it could be the ISS or Iridium flares passing my FOV but this wasn't the issue. I took my starmap and I drawed a line according the path on my photo towards the constellation Gemini and ended up at Rho Gemini which is near the radiant of the Geminids. |
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| Raw image directly from camera |
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| Nine sub-frames stacked and processed (H-alpha false color image on mouse over)
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| The visible light produced by a meteor can have many colors depending on the chemical composition. Phaethon, origin of this meteor shower, is a B-type asteroid and spectroscopy of B-class objects suggest major surface constituents of silicates, hydrated clay minerals, organic polymers, magnetite, and sulfides. The above imaged meteor was very bright in red light which indicates that silicate is one of the main components (see here), not too strange when an asteroid is the origin of these meteoroids. |
© Copyright Rob Kantelberg
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