Thursday, August 21, 2025

APOD - Mostly Perseids

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2025 August 21
See Explanation.  Clicking on the picture will download  the highest resolution version available.

Mostly Perseids
Image Credit & Copyright: Klaus Pillwatsch

Explanation: In this predawn skyscape recorded during the early morning hours of August 13, mostly Perseid meteors are raining down on planet Earth. You can easily identify the Perseid meteor streaks. They're the ones with trails that seem to converge on the annual meteor shower's radiant, a spot in the heroic constellation Perseus, located off the top of the frame. That's the direction in Earth's sky that looks along the orbit of this meteor shower's parent, periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle. Of course the scene is a composite, a combination of about 500 digital exposures to capture meteors registered with a single base frame exposure. But all exposures were taken during a period of around 2.5 hours from a wind farm near Mönchhof, Burgenland, Austria. Red lights on the individual wind turbine towers dot the foreground. In their spectacular close conjunction, bright planets Jupiter and Venus are poised above the eastern horizon.

Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space


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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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& Michigan Tech. U.


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Wednesday, August 20, 2025

APOD - Perseid Meteors from Durdle Door

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2025 August 20
A deep sky is shown with the band of our Milky Way Galaxy  running from the upper left to the lower right. The streaks  or many curved meteors are seen. In the foreground a beach  is seen with an unusual rock outcrop that has an opening.  Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

Perseid Meteors from Durdle Door
Image Credit & Copyright: Josh Dury

Explanation: What are those curved arcs in the sky? Meteors -- specifically, meteors from this year's Perseid meteor shower. Over the past few weeks, after the sky darkened, many images of Perseid meteors were captured separately and merged into a single frame, taken earlier. Although the meteors all traveled on straight paths, these paths appear slightly curved by the wide-angle lens of the capturing camera. The meteor streaks can all be traced back to a single point on the sky called the radiant, here just off the top of the frame in the constellation of Perseus. The same camera took a deep image of the background sky that brought up the central band of our Milky Way galaxy running nearly vertically through the featured image's center. The limestone arch in the foreground in Dorset, England is known as Durdle Door, a name thought to survive from a thousand years ago.

Tomorrow's picture: open space


< | Archive | Submissions | Index | Search | Calendar | RSS | Education | About APOD | Discuss | >

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
NASA Web Privacy, Accessibility, Notices;
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation
& Michigan Tech. U.


This is an automated email. If you notice any problems, just send me a note at gtracy@gmail.com. You can add and remove email addresses to this distribution list here, https://apodemail.org.Unsubscribe