Photographers snap shooting stars during Geminid Meteor Shower

Photographers around the region have captured snaps of a meteor shower.

Tom Wright spent several hours in sub-zero temperature at Sycamore Gap, in Northumberland to try and catch a glimpse of the Geminid Meteor Shower on Wednesday 14 December.

He said he saw more than 50 shooting stars between 8:30pm and 10pm and managed to capture two on camera.

Rich Smith also braved the cold to gather a picture of the shower above Westerdale Moor, near Whitby, on the night of Wednesday 14 December.

Using long-exposure on his camera, it captured the moment a shooting star made its way across the skies over the moor.

He said: It was a perfect night - lovely, clear and still evening with no clouds in the sky and it was also before the moon had risen. It was below the horizon so that gave me the best chance of capturing them.

"Part of the trick is to find some foreground interest or something else in the frame rather than it just be the sky. It just happened to be that night I looked across and I think it was a gamekeeper working on the moor.

"They were working with bright torches up on the moor, so I just pointed my camera that way to see what would happen and what it would look like. It was a bit of a fluke shot, really."

The Geminid Meteor Shower takes place every year and is one of the brightest stellar displays in the astrological calendar.

Earlier in the year, the photographer took a "once in a lifetime" wedding shot for a couple capturing the Northern Lights in the background.

Steven Lomas said there was an amazing display above South Shields. He managed to capture one of the shooting stars over the Weebles.

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