Honorable Mention, 2021

In the cold predawn hours of December 14, 2020, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory was open to the universe during the Geminid meteor shower. Of the 390 pictures captured during a 2-hour period, 57 images exhibiting visible meteors were combined. The resulting image shows all observed meteors and demonstrates the path that stars take around the north celestial pole as the Earth rotates. The gaps in these star trails visualize the time between each meteor event.

During this period, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope’s enclosure was stationary while it surveyed a specific area of the sky for HETDEX, or the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment. This ambitious project uses the HET’s 10-meter mirror to collect the light from many stars and galaxies simultaneously into over 100 spectrographs using thousands of fiber optic cables. By the end of the survey, HETDEX will have the spectral data for more than 1 million galaxies in hopes of illuminating the mystery of Dark Energy.

Credit:
Justen Pautzke
HET Observer, McDonald Observatory