Thirteen years of Kappa Cygnids
Every year in mid-August, almost at the same time like the Perseids, another meteor shower peaks: the κ-Cygnid. Named after the star Kappa (κ) in the Swan constellation, from where the slow meteors seemingly appear, they are almost not known as–unlike the Perseids–they have a very low rate of meteors, only about 3 per hour when the shower peaks. Since I have chased κ-Cygnids from 2012, for more than 443 hours of 59 nights, to be exact, I was successful in capturing dozens of them. It allowed me to reveal it as a meteor shower against the 11 August 2021 nightscape scenery of Elafonisi Beach, Crete, Greece. I think nobody captured κ-Cygnids this way before (correct me if I am wrong), cause it required very long-term shooting. Filtered from other meteors, planes, and satellites, this blended timelapse image shows that the 12 years of capturing is long enough to let the κ-Cygnid pop out from the “shadow of fame” of much more active Perseids.
The κ-Cygnids have an unknown source, but most likely they are caused by debris of minor planet 2008 ED69. They also have a 7-year cycle of higher activity caused by the influence of gravity from the giant planet Jupiter. Last time such higher activity occured in 2021, when also most of the meteors in the image were captured. Kappa-Cygnids are also one of three showers of “summer north toroidal complex” caused most likely by the same source (seriously suggested is asteroid 2008 ED69). That made me feel they really need to be brought out of the “shadow” of the famous August meteor shower.
Co authors of the data are Josef Kujal and Tomáš Slovinský.
Nights of shooting
The following statistics show the information about the observation night, along with the equipment used and the number of captured Kappa-Cygnids. The highest rate was recorded in 2021. There are two reasons: 1) Higher activity of the shower, 2) Most complex photographic coverage of the sky (4 cameras), and most of the clear skies.
- 2012 – 3 nights (app. 23 hours) – 1 Kappa Cygnid – Pancíř/Czech Republic (Canon 550D, Samyang 8mm, f2.8, ISO 6400, 30s exposures)
- 2013 – 8 nights (app. 63 hours) – 6 Kappa Cygnids – Ivan Dolac/Hvar/Croatia (Canon 6D, Sigma 15mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 30s exposures; Canon 550D, Samyang 8mm, f2.8, ISO 6400, 30s exposures)
- 2015 – 6 nights (app. 48 hours) – 3 Kappa Cygnids – Kolonica/Slovsakia (Canon 6D, Sigma 15mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 30s exposures)
- 2016 – 2 nights (app. 12 hours) – 0 Kappa Cygnids – Králova Studňa/Slovakia (Canon 6D, Sigma 15mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 30s exposures)
- 2018 – 8 nights (app. 61 hours) – 4 Kappa Cygnids – Kolonica/Slovsakia (2x Canon 6D, Samyang 12mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 30s exposures)
- 2020 – 2 nights (app. 15 hours) – 2 Kappa Cygnids – Seč Lake/Czech Republic (2x Canon 6D, Samyang 12mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 30s exposures)
- 2021 – 6 nights (app. 49 hours) – 38 Kappa Cygnids – Elafonisi/Crete/Greece (3x Canon 6D, Samyang 12mm, f2.8, ISO 8000, 30s exposures)
- 2023 – 8 nights (app. 59 hours) – 3 Kappa Cygnids – Eastern Slovakia (2x Canon 6D, Samyang 12mm /1/, Samyang 14mm /2/, f2.8, ISO 8000, 30s exposures)
- 2024 – 8 nights (app. 56 hours) – 6 Kappa Cygnids – Seč Lake/Czech Republic (4x Canon 6D, Samyang 12mm /1,2/, Samyang 14mm /3,4/, f2.8, ISO 8000, 30s exposures)
- 2025 – 8 nights (app. 57 hours) – 3 Kappa Cygnids – Seč Lake/Czech Republic (Canon Ra, Nikon Z6III, Samyang 12mm, f2.8, ISO 2000-8000, 30s exposures)
For foreground used Canon Ra, Sigma 35mm, f1.6, ISO 10000, panorama of 52 single 15s exposures from tripod. H-alpha and OIII captured separately and added as individual channels.
Full copyright: Petr Horálek/Institute of Physics in Opava; Josef Kujal/Astronomical Society of Hradec Králové; Tomáš Slovinský; Acknowledgement: Mahdi Zamani
