                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

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      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2025 July 25

                        Twelve Years of Kappa Cygnids
    Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek, Josef Kujal, Tomáš Slovinský;
                        Acknowledgement: Mahdi Zamani

   Explanation: Meteors from the Kappa Cygnid meteor shower are captured
   in this time-lapse composite skyscape. The minor meteor shower, with a
   radiant not far from its eponymous star Kappa Cygni, peaks in
   mid-August, almost at the same time as the much better-known and
   better-observed Perseid meteor shower. But, seen to have a peak rate of
   only about 3 meteors per hour, Kappa Cygnids are vastly outnumbered by
   the more popular, prolific Perseid shower's meteors that emanate from
   the heroic constellation Perseus. To capture dozens of Kappa Cygnids,
   this long term astro-imaging project compiled meteors in exposures
   selected from over 51 August nights during the years 2012 through 2024.
   Most of the exposures with identified Kappa Cygnid meteors were made in
   August 2021, a high point of the shower's known 7-year activity cycle.
   All twelve years worth of Kappa Cygnids are registered against a base
   sea and night skyscape of the Milky Way above Elafonisi Beach, Crete,
   Greece, also recorded in August of 2021.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

