The Perseid Meteor Shower will reach its peak tonight (August 12) but those looking to photograph this annual celestial event will have to contend with a very bright supermoon known as a Sturgeon Moon.
The Perseid Meteor Shower is one of my favorite times of the year, there is nothing like getting out of the city on a summer night to watch a star-filled sky as the bright Perseids streak across in vivid colors.
During the peak of this year's Perseid meteor shower, photographer Matt Dieterich pointed his camera at Mount Rainier and created this photo of the meteors and Milky Way erupting from the active volcano.
Montreal-based photographer François Guinaudeau went out a couple of nights ago to shoot Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner during the Perseid meteor shower. As he was capturing photos of the comet for stacking, a shooting star flew into the frame and exploded near the comet. Above is one of the photos that resulted.
A photographer named David from Hood River, Oregon, went out this weekend and photographed the night sky during the Perseid meteor shower. He then turned 400 of the photos into this star trail timelapse that contains several of the shooting stars he saw.
Photographing a meteor shower is more like photographing a time-lapse than traditional still photos. You can never anticipate where or when a meteor is going to streak across the sky.
One amazing perk that comes with being a NASA astronaut is that you can watch meteor showers up close and from above. Astronaut Ron Garan captured this awesome photograph from the International Space Station of a Perseid meteor burning up in our atmosphere.