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The Perseids , one of the year ’s most fecund meteor showers , peaked this week , raining 12 of " shoot champion " per hour through Earth ’s sky .
Some lucky stargazer catch adouble feature of speech of meteor and daze auroras , which were trigger off by a spree of powerful solar eruptions sooner in the week . Others , like U.K.-based astrophotographerJosh Dury , hunted for meteors at thematically appropriate locales — namely , the prehistoric astronomical monumentStonehengein Wiltshire , England .
Dury’s full-size image is a composite of 43 different exposures of Perseid meteors and the Milky Way
Stonehenge , built about 5,000 class ago to ordinate with the sun on thesummer solstice , is one of the most democratic and challenging astronomic monument in the world .
To capture his stunning composite image of Perseid meteors streaking over the illustrious stones , Dury snapped photos from the memorial ground for three and a one-half hour . He then combined 43 private exposures of shooting adept with a deep range of a function of the background sky , where the central band of theMilky Wayslashes toward the horizon .
" The Perseids have been a part of my biography since I was a nipper at the age of seven - year older when I first start my journeying in the creation of Astonomy , " Dury told Live Science in an email . " For me , they are one of the most magic , anticipating events of the astronomic calendar . Seeing meteors [ conjures ] images of ambition and it is that mysticism I wished to portray through this figure of speech . "
Dury’s full-size image is a composite of 43 different exposures of Perseid meteors and the Milky Way
Dury ’s prototype was take on the nighttime of Aug. 9 , and was feature asNASA ’s uranology picture of the dayon Aug. 12 . If you ’re interested in capture the looker of the night sky , jibe out our guide to thebest astrophotography camerasfor founder and veteran photographers likewise .
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So - call shooting lead are not really stars but tiny bits of rock and roll plunging through Earth ’s atmosphere at more than 130,000 mph ( 210,000 klick / h ) . This blazing - fast descent causes the rocks to inflame up and release energy as light . yearly meteor showers like the Perseids happen when Earth moves through a dense cloud of stony debris exit in our major planet ’s path by a comet . The comet responsible for the Perseids is 109P / Swift - Tuttle , which last zoomed through the innersolar systemin 1992 and wo n’t come back until 2126 .
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— Stonehenge ’s 13,200 - pounding Altar Stone originated in northeast Scotland , more than 450 miles away
Meteor showers get their names from the point in the sky where their shot stars seem to arise — also known as the radiant . For the Perseids , that radiant is the constellation Perseus ( just out of frame at the top of this persona ) . Although the meteors in this picture appear to move on arc itinerary , that ’s a trick of Dury ’s wide - slant lens ; each meteor is actually falling in a straight line away from Perseus .
The Perseids appear every year between roughly July 14 and Sept. 1 . This year ’s peak occur between Aug. 12 and Aug. 13 . However , meteors will still be seeable tumbling aside from Perseus every night until the shower ’s end .
