Three Halley Comet meteors recorded over Georgia before Orionid peak
Astrophotographer Tim McCollum captured three bright trails from Halley's Comet debris over Toccoa on Oct. 21, as the annual meteor shower builds toward its peak.
By Harper Hassan ·
Tim McCollum photographed three bright meteors streaking above Toccoa, Georgia, in the early morning of Oct. 21. The trails were captured during the Orionid meteor shower, an annual display that peaks in late October. Each meteor appears to radiate from a point near Betelgeuse, a red giant star in the constellation Orion.
The glowing debris originates from Comet 1P/Halley, also known as Halley's Comet. The comet itself is more than 3 billion miles from Earth at present, but the particles it shed long ago still burn up in the atmosphere, creating visible trails. McCollum recorded the activity between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., before the shower reached its highest activity level.
McCollum used a Canon EOS Ra camera paired with an RF 28-70 f2.0 lens to capture the scene. He took multiple 30-second exposures while a star tracker kept the camera locked on the radiant point. The individual frames were later merged into a single composite image using PixInsight software.
The resulting image includes several deep sky objects beyond the meteors. On the right side, the stars of Orion's Belt are visible near the Orion Nebula, a nearby star-forming region. The Rosette Nebula, catalogued as Caldwell 49, appears within the dense starfield of the Milky Way's galactic plane. Numerous star clusters are also present in the frame.
The Orionid shower remains active until Nov. 7, providing further opportunities for skywatchers to observe meteors from Halley's Comet. The display is expected to continue producing visible trails for the next several weeks. Earth is also passing through debris streams from Comet 2P/Encke, which produce the Taurid meteor shower. This additional stream can occasionally generate bright fireballs around Halloween.
McCollum's composite image was taken earlier this week as the annual display built toward its peak activity. The photograph documents the interaction between Halley's Comet debris and Earth's atmosphere. The data confirms that particles shed by the comet continue to produce observable meteors even when the comet itself is far away.
Source: Space.com
