Sprites, Airglow and Meteor (OlympusMons-UMONS)

Sprites, Airglow and Meteor

A night of Augustus during the Perseids meteor shower's peak.

Storms are hitting France from west to east. We fortunately are in the French Alps at the observatory of Saint-Véran, one of the highest in Europe reaching an altitude of barely 3000 m. Lightning are ripping across the horizon all around us. Nevertheless, the sky above is so clear that we are able to see meteors raining down.

This picture was taken that night and reveals a combination of spectacular phénomenons: a Perseid meteor falling beside the Milky way, a quite intense air glow and, just above the most active storm cell, luminous reddish flashes of sprites rising up into the sky!

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Une nuit d'août, lors du pic des Perséides.

Des orages frappent la France d'ouest en est. Fort heureusement, nous nous trouvons dans les Alpes, à l'Observatoire de Saint-Véran, l'un des plus hauts d'Europe à un peu moins de 3000m d'altitude. Des éclairs déchirent l'horizon tout autour de nous, mais au-dessus de nous, le ciel est si clair que nous pouvons assister à la pluie d'étoiles filantes.

Cette image a été prise cette nuit-là et combine plusieurs phénomènes célestes spectaculaires: une Perséide tombant le long de la Voie Lactée, la présence assez intense d'air glow et, juste au-dessus de la cellule orageuse la plus active, les flashes lumineux de farfadets se décrochant de l'horizon!

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic failed
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4318281
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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