Really Rocket Science

Via Blue Dog Films on Vimeo…

Geminids meteor shower December 2014…. a slightly different perspective!
I filmed some time lapse images over 2 nights around the 14th of December 2014. Intrigued by the Geminid meteor shower, I decided to make a short film/ animation to explain (very simply) how it comes about.
You have to watch the time lapse sequences a few times and more of the meteor streaks will reveal themselves. They are very subtle bright streaks.

Time lapses shot on a Canon 5d, compositing in After Effects and 3d work in Modo.

Get ready, watchers of the skies!

Periodic Comet 209P/LINEAR is predicted to put on a show for us.

Preliminary results by Esko Lyytinen and Peter Jenniskens, later confirmed by other researchers, predict 209P/LINEAR may cause the next big meteor shower which would come from the constellation Camelopardalis on the night of 23/24 May 2014. There may be 100 to 400 meteors per hour. All the trails from the comet from 1803 through 1924 may intersect Earths orbit during May 2014. The peak activity is expected to occur around 24 May 2014 7h UT when dust trails produced from past returns of the comet may pass 0.0002 AU (30,000 km; 19,000 mi) from Earth.

This April 30, 2014 image was taken using the NASA Marshal Space Flight Center 20″ telescope located in New Mexico. A 3-minute exposure, it shows 14th magnitude Comet 209P/LINEAR shining faintly among the stars of Ursa Major. At the time of this image, 209P was just over 40 million km from Earth, heading for a relatively close approach (8.3 million km) with us on May 29, 2014.

Image credit: NASA/MSFC/Bill Cooke