Astronomy Picture of the Day
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Petr Horálek,
Josef Kujal,
Tomáš Slovinský;
Acknowledgement:
Mahdi Zamani
Explanation:
Meteors from the
Kappa Cygnid
meteor shower
are captured in this time-lapse composite skyscape.
The minor meteor shower, with a
radiant
not far from its
eponymous star Kappa Cygni, peaks in mid-August, almost
at the same time as the much better-known and
better-observed Perseid meteor shower.
But, seen to have a peak rate of only about 3 meteors per hour,
Kappa Cygnids are vastly outnumbered by the more popular, prolific
Perseid shower's
meteors that emanate from the heroic constellation Perseus.
To capture dozens of Kappa Cygnids, this long term astro-imaging project
compiled meteors in exposures selected from over 51 August nights during
the years 2012 through 2024.
Most of the exposures with
identified Kappa Cygnid meteors
were made in August 2021,
a high point of the shower's known 7-year activity cycle.
All twelve years worth of Kappa Cygnids
are registered against a base sea and night skyscape of the Milky Way above
Elafonisi Beach, Crete, Greece, also recorded in August of 2021.