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Halley's Comet dazzles from afar in spectacular astrophoto of Orionid meteor shower
This incredible composite image of Orionid meteors was captured as Earth passed through the debris trail shed by Halley's Comet.
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Astrophotographer Tim McCollum captured a spectacular view of Orionid meteors sharing the night sky with a host of deep sky wonders on Oct. 21, as the annual shooting star display ramped up to peak activity.
Comet 1P/Halley may be over 3 billion miles (4.8 kilometers) from Earth, but that didn't stop it from putting on a breathtaking display earlier this week, as particles cast off by the ancient wanderer carved a fiery path through the autumn sky.
McCollum was able to capture a trio of vivid Orionid meteors as they streaked through the night sky above the city of Toccoa, Georgia, between 3-4 a.m. on Oct. 21. Each of the shooting stars can be seen racing away from the shower's apparent point of origin — or radiant — which is located close to the red giant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.
Successfully imaging a shooting star takes a combination of skill, luck and patience. McCollum photographed the meteors over the course of multiple 30-second exposures taken with a Canon EOS Ra camera and RF 28-70 f2.0 lens, which was fixed unerringly on the radiant with the aid of a star tracker. The individual exposures were then combined into a single composite image using the astrophoto software PixInsight.
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The familiar stars of Orion's Belt glisten to the right of McCollum's image, close to the glow of the Orion Nebula — one of the nearest major star forming regions to Earth. The Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49) can also be spotted embedded in the dense starfield and dust lanes of the Milky Way's galactic plane, which runs diagonally through the composite image, as can numerous star clusters.
The Orionid meteor shower is active until Nov. 7, so be sure to head outside over the next few nights for a chance to spot one of Comet 1P/Halley's dazzling shooting stars. If you're lucky, you may even spot a Halloween Fireball belonging to the Taurid meteor shower, as Earth passes through the debris streams cast off by Comet 2P/Encke!
Why not read our handy guide to photographing shooting stars? You can also take a look at our picks of the best lenses and cameras for astrophotography available in 2026, including the Canon EOS R8, which delivers the essential interval shooting functionality you need to capture meteors without bursting the bank.