Panorama photo turns magic
Jono Matla had just pressed the shutter button when the night sky lit up.
Starting as a ball of orange, a meteor was cutting its way through the sky over Waikanae, north of Wellington, turning a neon green as it went.
‘‘I had literally just pressed the button to take [the photo] and I looked up and saw it,’’ he said.
It was Tuesday, about 9pm, and he was the only one on the beach.
‘‘Hands-down,’’ Matla said, ‘‘one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen’’.
Matla – who has been a photographer since about 2012 – took six shots with a 50mm lens to make the vertical panorama.
It was on the last shot, just after he pressed the shutter, when the meteor shot past.
It burned out after about four seconds but Matla had it on his camera – a striking green streak across the sky.
While he had it on camera, he was not alone in seeing it.
Reports came in from across the North Island and as far south as Nelson.
The colour of the meteor – from orange to its striking green – would be down to the material it was made of, said Nigel Forst, superintendent of Mt John Observatory at Lake Tekapo, South Canterbury. The meteor was not sighted that far south, probably because of the effect of the curve of the Earth.