Halley's Comet dazzles from afar in spectacular astrophoto of Orionid meteor shower

Astrophotographer Tim McCollum captured a breathtaking image of Orionid meteors streaking across the night sky near Toccoa, Georgia, on October 21. Despite being over 3 billion miles away from Earth, Comet 1P/ Halley put on a spectacular display as its particles created a fiery path through the autumn sky. McCollum photographed three vivid meteors, each racing away from their apparent point of origin - near the red giant star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.

To capture the meteors, McCollum used a Canon EOS Ra camera with an RF 28-70mm f2.0 lens, which was fixed on the radiant using a star tracker. The individual exposures were combined into a single composite image using astrophoto software PixInsight. The Orionid meteor shower is active until November 7, so stargazers have a chance to spot these dazzling shooting stars in the coming nights.