Dawn of the Quadrantids

My first flight of 2022 took me across the South Atlantic. It was near the peak of the Quadrantids Meteor Shower. This image is made from 89 stills of a time lapse move captured during the flight and contains 8 Quadrantids captured during the last 90 minutes of 4 hours total recording time.

 

Along the upper edge of the frame is the Southern Hemisphere Milky Way with the Coalsack Dark Nebula Complex, the Soutern Cross, IC 2944 (Running Chicken Nebula), NGC 3373 (Eta Carinae Nebula) and part of the huge, but very dim Gum Nebula.

 

The approaching day is painting the horizon on the left side in orange and blue tones, while the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is rising on the right. The LMC is an irregular galaxy that, contrary to what was common wisdom for more than a century, is not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way. From a viewpoint inside the LMC, the Milky Way would be a spectacular sight - over 14 times brighter than the LMC appears to us and spanning 36° of the sky.

 

EXIF

Canon EOS Ra

Sigma 28mm f/1.4 ART @ f/2

Mount: Boeing 777-300ER

Sky:

4 panel panorama, each a stack of 20x 8s @ ISO6400

Meteors:

8 single exposures aligned with the stars

Foreground:

Single exposure of 8s @ ISO6400

Done