First Star Images -- Is that a meteor shower?

[jwbryson1]

This is my first attempt at shooting stars. I personally think it sucks because there is some light pollution (even though I was way out in the VA hill country), and the image is not perfectly in focus, but I do like what appears to be a meteor shower in the image. I need to work on these types of photos, but can somebody tell me if these are meteors or just airplanes?

C&C welcome.

[/URL] Meteor Shower 2 by jwbryson1, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[pgriz]

Airplanes blink and generally move slowly. Meteors are very fast (duration is less than 1/10 sec, unless it is a big one...), and generally are arced downwards. Depending on how high in the atmosphere the rock burns up, you may get reddish, blue, and even green colours. Rocks that are larger than one meter occasionally manage to reach the ground as meteorites, but their survival through the atmosphere strongly depends on their composition, and their entry speed.


You can also see satellites from time to time, especially if you're within two hours or so of sunset, since the satellites will be in the sun while you're already deep into the earth's shadow. Most of these are usually barely visible and don't vary in brightness much, unless they are tumbling, or their solar collector antennaes are oriented at just the right angle to reflect the sun at you (look up Iridium flares, if this interests you).

 

[WesternGuy]

Look like meteor trails to me - they are very thin and very short. I doubt that they are airplanes, as PGRIZ says, planes tend to show up as a trail of blinking lights - you would not see the contrails in the dark.
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WesternGuy