Time-lapse video taken at Seč in the night from Sunday to Monday, August 12 | Video: courtesy of Petr Horálek
“It was a brief but beautiful glow during the peak the Perseid meteor shower. For this timelapse, taken from Ustupek (49.82N, 15.65E) between 23:28 and 2:13 CEST, I used a Canon 6D and a Samyang 14mm. What a view. You can also see Jupiter and Mars up close in the sky with the Hyades and Pleiades clusters,” he said photographer, traveler and popularizer of astronomy Petr Horálek.
He captured the cosmic beauty in the field above the Kapitán hotel in Ústupky in Seč, where much of his famous shots.
Petr Horálek was born in 1986 in Pardubice. After studying theoretical physics and astrophysics at the Masaryk University in Brno and the University of Silesia in Opava, he briefly worked as an astronomer at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, later at the Observatory in Úpica and also at the Valašská Meziříčí Observatory.
In 2015, he went freelance as a photographer, popularizer of astronomy, lecturer of photography courses and travel lectures. He is most happy that the planet 6822 Horálek was named after him, he became the first Czech Photo Ambassador of the European Southern Observatory, and several of his pictures were selected by NASA.
“But at heart I’m still the little boy who eagerly looks up at the stars, eager to see every rare celestial vista or astronomical phenomenon. Just an astrologer at heart and soul,” he says of himself.
Interesting facts about the Perseid meteor shower
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Why are they called the Perseids?
The place from which the meteors seem to fly is located in the constellation Perseus, after which the phenomenon is named. -
Where is the constellation Perseus?
It is located north of the celestial equator. From the Czech Republic, it is necessary to look towards the southeast. -
How fast do the Perseids fly?
Meteors reach a speed of almost 58 kilometers per second. -
Where is the best place for observation in the Czech Republic?
The Jizera region of the dark sky. It is the first international dark sky park in the world. It is located in an almost uninhabited part of the mountain range and lies halfway between the Czech and Polish sides.
