Explanation:
Colorful and bright, the city lights of Vancouver, Canada
are reflected in the water in this portrait of
the world at night.
Recorded on August 12 during the
Perseid
Meteor Shower,
the wide-angle view takes in a large
swath along the photographer's eastern horizon.
The picture is a composite of many consecutive 2 second exposures
that, when added together, cover a
total time of an hour and 33 minutes.
During that time,
stars trailed
through the night sky above
Vancouver, their steady motion along concentric arcs
a reflection of planet Earth's
rotation.
The dotted trails of aircraft also cut across the scene.
Of course, two of the frames captured the brief, brilliant flash of
a Perseid fireball
as it tracked across the top of the field
of view.
The large gap in the single meteor trail corresponds to the time gap
between the consecutive frames.
Watch: Saturday's partial lunar eclipse -
Times
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