The Meteor and the Star Cluster
Image Credit & Copyright:
Yousif Alqasimi &
Essa Al Jasmi
Sometimes even the sky surprises you.
To see more stars and faint nebulosity in the
Pleiades star cluster
(M45),
long exposures are made.
Many times, less interesting items appear on the exposures that were not intended -- but later edited out.
These include
stuck pixels,
cosmic ray hits, frames with
bright clouds or
Earth's Moon,
airplane trails,
lens flares,
faint satellite trails, and even
insect trails.
Sometimes, though, something
really interesting is caught by chance.
That was just the case a few weeks ago in
al-Ula,
Saudi Arabia
when a bright meteor streaked across during an
hour-long exposure of the
Pleiades.
Along with the
famous bright blue stars, less famous and less bright blue stars,
and
blue-reflecting dust surrounding the star cluster,
the
fast rock fragment created a distinctive green glow,
likely due to vaporized metals.