By Rick Nowell,

College of the Rockies

The Leonid Meteor Shower rapidly approached us on Sunday night/ Monday morning, Nov 16/17, when the Earth passed through dust and ice particles from comet Tempel-Tuttle.

Meteor counts were estimated at around 15 per hour this year. The crescent Moon was below the eastern horizon until around 1 a.m., so the skies were fairly dark. The Leonid meteors travel swiftly at 71 km/s which can create fast green ionization trails 70 to 120km high in the upper atmosphere. (photo)

The meteor radiant rose about midnight, (did you see the backwards question mark of Leo the lion in the constellation photo above, with Regulus as the dot?).  Big bright Jupiter was a white dot in front of Leo (not shown here).  The higher Leo rises, the more meteors there are to be seen.

I was out at the old Wasa ‘Drag strip’ Saturday night testing some camera equipment.  I didn’t get photos of any meteors, but I did see the Northern Lights on the Skookumchuck horizon. Temperature minus 17C, cold and clear, no wind, with strips of cloud moving South down the valley.

There was a haze of wood smoke capping the calm air above Wasa, which reflected the glow of streetlights there.

In the lead image, we’re facing north, and you can see the big dipper stars above, with the yellowish glow of Skookumchuck Pulp Mill lights at lower centre, glowing in the woodsmoke haze. The white light glow on the right are car headlights along the highway.

In this photo it’s dying down a bit.  Also I’m using just 1600 iso (the last photo at 3200 iso was a bit overexposed), but the green and red spike is still there.  Skookumchuck Pulp Mill is the orange glow behind the tree.

Like meteors, the aurora occurs in the upper atmosphere, where gas molecules are hit by electrons from the Sun.  The lower edge at 80 to 100 km is where nitrogen atoms glow crimson; midway between 100 and 200km, oxygen gas glows green, and nitrogen glows blue; and above that from 100 to 250 km, oxygen gas glows a dim red.

Article Share