Amateur and professional astronomers generally keep an eye out for dazzling cosmic objects, but sometimes important moments are wasted on Earth when technology sent into space knocks them out. This happened on the 15th sickle, when a bright meteor from a swarm of Perseids flew over the observatory on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. Alas, the sight of the majestic mirror of the LST-1 prototype telescope captured this phenomenon from a unique angle, creating a mirror image, where the central part of our Chumatsky Way can be seen from the meteor.

Mirror images of heavenly phenomena.

The photo, published by NASA as part of the Astronomical Picture of the Day (APOD) project, shows the bright haze of the Perseid meteor blurring the night sky. Our Galaxy, the Chumatsky Way, spreads out above it, with its dark saw-like glooms and so many stars that can be seen above the horizon. However, the most important element of the composition is the 23-meter mirror of the prototype telescope LST-1 (Large-Sized Telescope). This gigantic optical device, installed at high altitudes, recorded not only the meteor itself, but also its hostile appearance in its numerous six-day segments. This created the effect of mirror symmetry, where the cosmos repeats itself, taking the real view of the heavens from their images to a technical artifact.

A new look at the World through innovative technologies.

The LST-1 telescope is the first instrument to be part of the innovative project Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). Its purpose is to detect extremely short bursts of visible light in the atmosphere caused by high-energy gamma-ray exchanges from cosmic bodies, such as distant active galaxies or gamma-ray bursts. These flames only last for about a billionth of a second. At the moment of the shower of a bright meteor, around the mirror segments of LST-1, the atmosphere fell. This idea was no less a miraculous example of the power of destruction, but also demonstrated the potential of new astronomical instruments for recording and investigating the most interesting cosmic phenomena, giving us new information..

Dzherelo: NASAMirror image of the meteor and the Chumatsky Way: an amazing photo from the Canary Islands read on the HiTech website. Expert.