Frigid Geminids

Braving the intense cold and a sleepy early morning rising, I captured these two meteor streaks, part of the Geminid meteor shower which peaked on Tuesday, December 14, 2010. This view looks SW over Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is a composite image, with the upper meteor streak and the background shot at 4:25 AM and the lower meteor streak shot at 4:45 AM. The streaks are passing through the constellation Taurus (right, lower) after emanating from the radiant point in Gemini (upper, center). The bright star between the trees at lower left is Betelgeuse in Orion, and the bright star at upper right is Capella in Auriga. The air temperature during this photo session was -3 degrees F. Less than two hours later, the sky clouded over. This was a 21 second exposure at f/3.5, focal length of 18mm and an ISO rating of 1250.