Perseid and Andromeda Galaxy
![[meteors_020813_11.jpg]](meteors_020813_11.jpg)
Not only was the phase of the moon favorable for viewing the 2002 Perseid meteor shower, but the weather in central Arizona was cooperative as well. I stayed up all night at a remote location in the Arizona desert, watching and photographing the sky. While meteors appeared steadily throughout the night, this was the only one I captured on film. But I could not ask for a better one -- the colorful fireball streaked right past the Andromeda Galaxy!
This photograph was published in the August 2004 issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine.
This very same meteor was photographed by Rick Scott from the same location; Rick's photo was featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site on August 23, 2002.
Date: August 13, 2002
Time: 12:43 a.m. MST
Location: Four Peaks Road, NE of Phoenix, Arizona
Camera: Olympus OM-1 on homemade tracking mount
Film: Kodak Ektachrome P1600 slide
Focal length: 40mm
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure Time: 5 minutes
Scanned by Rick Scott of Natural Images using Nikon Coolscan LS-2000
Processing: Cropped and gamma adjusted in Adobe Photoshop