                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2026 August 22

                               Mostly Perseids
   Image Credit & Copyright: Jakub Koukal (Valašské Meziříčí Observatory)

   Explanation: Recorded the night of August 12-13, images from four
   dedicated meteor-monitoring cameras at an astronomical observatory in
   Czechia were aligned and combined to create this all-night, all-sky
   view. On that night, the total count came to 1,706 meteors. And since
   that coincided with the peak activity of the 2026 Perseid Meteor
   Shower, most are perseids. Their overwhelming numbers make them easy to
   spot. Quite convincingly, perseid trails all trace back to a single
   radiant on the sky at the upper right, a region in the annual shower's
   eponymous constellation Perseus. But meteors belonging to other much
   less active showers can also revealed by finding their radiants too.
   For example, seen crossing the perseid trails are meteors from a shower
   whose radiant lies in Cygnus, known as Kappa Cygnids. The antihelion
   complex, a general region near Aquarius and opposite the Sun in the
   sky, is also identifiable as a weak source for meteors.

                Tomorrow's picture: interplanetary road trip
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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