Eta Aquarid Meteors Streak By in Stunning Astrophotos

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower has graced the skies this week and while this hasn’t been an exceptionally active shower, here are a few beautiful photos we’ve received. Above astrophotographer Justin Ng climbed Mount Bromo in Indonesia on May 6, and had to contend with interference from the active volcano.

“After having visited Mt. Bromo several times over the past two years, I must say it’s definitely much more active now and part of the night sky was obscured by the sulphur dioxide gas emitted from Mount Bromo when I took this shot,” Justin said via email. “At times, I was ‘consumed’ by the sulphur gas for several minutes due to the occasional change in wind direction and I could hardly breathe or kept my eyes opened when that happened. Despite these challenging shooting and viewing conditions, the natives or tourists will still ascend the steep stone staircase (approximately 253 concrete steps) that leads to the brim of the steaming, sulphurous, gaping caldera to catch a glimpse of the scenic sunrise every morning.”

Wow! This beautiful image is a result of stacking 4 images taken at different times facing at the same direction.

This image is an example of how sparse this meteor shower was this year. “After 547 shots during the night of 5, May 2014 before dawn, my camera has captured only one meteor from the Eta Aquarids meteor Shower!” wrote Astro Guillaume on Flickr.