On this day in space! Nov. 27, 1885: Astronomer Captures 1st Known Photo of a Meteor

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On Nov. 27, 1885, an astronomer made the first known photograph of a meteor.

On Nov. 27, 1885, an astronomer made the first known photograph of a meteor.

The first known meteor photo as taken by Austro-Hungarian astronomer Ladislaus Weinek on this day in 1885. (Image credit: Ladislaus Weinek)

When Weinek observed the meteor shower in 1885, it was in the middle of a meteor storm. This means that there were way more meteors than usual. Skywatchers could see thousands of meteors per hour.

What used to be a spectacular annual meteor shower is now hardly even visible. Instead of photographic plates or digital cameras, astronomers now have to use special tracking equipment to record images of Andromedid meteors.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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