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QUIET SUN: With sunspot 826 fading away, solar activity has returned to low levels. Solar flares and auroras are unlikely this week.
FAINT METEORS: Everybody loves a bright meteor. A shadow-casting fireball is a thing of beauty. But faint meteors can be beautiful, too, such as this one photographed on Dec. 5th by Greg Selleck of Madison, Wisconsin:
"I was imaging the Helix Nebula [using my backyard telescope] when I caught this little guy in a 5-minute exposure," says Selleck. Many times fainter than the human eye can see, meteors like these are called telescopic meteors. With a little luck you can see one yourself.
HEILIGENSCHEIN: "Early Saturday morning (Dec. 3rd) when the shadows were still long and the grass was covered with dew, I noticed a silver glow around the shadow of my head," reports Mila Zinkova of San Francisco. She grabbed her camera and snapped this picture of the heiligenschein:
Also known as "the holy light," the heiligenschein may be seen any time there is dew on the ground. Tiny dew drops act like lenses, focusing sunlight onto blades of grass. This causes the grass around the anti-solar point (i.e., the shadow of your head) to shine extra-brightly.
EXTRA: "Did you know that if you are in a group, you see the heiligenschein only around your own head?" asks reader Alistair Scott. "It makes you look like you're the only holy one in the group."
In other words, the glow surrounds your personal anti-solar point. You can't see someone else's holy light. To illustrate this, Scott photographed the heiligenschein by holding his camera out at arm's length: image.
Note: the vertical streak in Scott's image is due to the opposition effect rather than heiligenschein, while the circular halo around the camera is a mixture of the two phenomena.