Spectacular meteor burns bright above Nelson in time-lapse photo

Sunday, 24 April 2022

Amateur photographer Greg Price captured the bright meteor over Richmond, Nelson, shortly before midnight through time lapse photography.

An amateur photographer has captured a meteor that streaked across the night sky above Nelson and left a lingering smoke trail.

On Saturday night at 10.56pm, Richmond resident Greg Price set up his Nikon Z7 camera in his back garden to capture the Lyrid meteor shower through time-lapse photography.

After returning inside, Price went back to his camera after hearing a “faint bang” and his dog barking.

Later, Price checked his camera and saw he had photographed a shooting star. The meteor had lit up his whole garden, and left a thin trail of smoke in the sky, which took around two minutes to disperse.

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The meteor was captured by photographer Greg Price from his back garden in Richmond on Saturday night

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Saturn, Mars, Venus and Jupiter in a straight line to the north-east over Richmond.

While he was disappointed to have missed seeing the meteor in person, Price said he was thrilled to have it on camera.

The same night, Price captured other photos of meteors, but none that created enough light as to light up the ground, or leave behind a smoke trail.

“It was a hundred times brighter than all the other ones. It was spectacular.”

“I’ve seen other photos of meteors before, but I’ve never seen one that left a smoke trail.”

Price used a Samyang 14mm F2.8 lens with a 10-second exposure time and an auto-ISO around 12800 to capture the meteor.

Time-lapse photography involves taking one photo every 10 seconds. Long exposure is needed to get a good picture, with a high ISO to get the most of the available light.

The Lyrid meteor shower was caused by Earth travelling through a cloud of rocks and dust left over from Comet Thatcher. Comet Thatcher was last seen in 1861.

Price said the next significant meteor shower was the Eta Aquarids during the first week of May.

It was meant to be one of the best ones of the year to view from New Zealand, and the result of rocks and dust left behind by Halley's Comet.

Currently, it was possible to see Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter in a straight line about an hour before sunrise.

Price said the line-up only happened about once a decade on average and looked really impressive as the planets were much brighter than other stars.