On August 13, 2002,while countin Perseid meteors unde dark, early morning Arizona skies,Rick Scott set out to photograph their fleetingbut fiery trails.The equipment he used included a telephoto lens and fastcolor film.After 21 pictures he'd caught only two meteors, but luckilythis was one of them.Tracking the sky, his ten minute long exposure shows afield of many stars in our own Milky Way galaxy, most toofaint to be seen by the unaided eye Flashingfrom lower left to upper right, the bright meteor wouldhave been an easy eyeful though,as friction with Earth's atmospher vaporized the hurtling grain o cosmic sand, a piece of dust from Come Swift-Tuttle.Just above and left of center, well beyond the stars ofthe Milky Way, lies the island universeknown as M31 or the Andromeda galaxy.The visible meteor trail begins about 100 kilometersabove Earth's surface, one of the closest celestial objectsseen in the sky.In contrast, Andromeda, about 2 million light-yearsaway, is the most distant object easily visible to the naked-eye.
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