                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2021 August 20

                            Three Perseid Nights
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Balint Lengyel

   Explanation: Frames from a camera that spent three moonless nights
   under the stars create this composite night skyscape. They were
   recorded during August 11-13 while planet Earth was sweeping through
   the dusty trail of comet Swift-Tuttle. One long exposure, untracked for
   the foreground, and the many star tracking captures of Perseid shower
   meteors were taken from the village of Magyaregres, Hungary. Each
   aligned against the background stars, the meteor trails all point back
   to the annual shower's radiant in the constellation Perseus heroically
   standing above this rural horizon. Of course the comet dust particles
   are traveling along trajectories parallel to each other. The radiant
   effect is due only to perspective, as the parallel tracks appear to
   converge in the distance against the starry sky.

         Notable APOD Image Submissions: Perseid Meteor Shower 2021
                      Tomorrow's picture: mutual events
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.


