Meteor Photoshop Tutorial
Use your circular selection tool to make a circle
in the center of your image, holding shift as you
drag to insure that it is a perfect circle. Choose
Edit > Stroke and stroke you image with a white
border of 20 pixels.

Choose Filter > Distort > Ocean Ripple. Raise
the settings until you get something like mine. I
chose a ripple size of 6 and magnitude of 14.

Next choose Filter > Blur > Radial Blur, choose
a the quality "best" and the highest intensity.
Repeat this filter again by pressing Ctrl+F

Duplicate your layer, and choose Filter > Distort
> Ocean Ripple again. Depending on the size you
want your meteor, play with the settings to create
an effect similar to mine.

Duplicate this layer, and choose Filter > Blur
> Radial Blur once again as well.

Change this layer's mode the Color Dodge, and the
layer below it to "Lighten"

Create a new layer, and change the mode to "color"
Change your foreground color to orange and your background
color to red, and lay down a radial gradient.

Merge all of your layers by choosing Layer > Flatten
Image. Select your meteor, and move it towards the
upper left hand corner, and perform Filter > Distort
> Pinch. Adjust the value depending on how "fast"
you want your meteor to be moving.

Duplicate your layer, and perform Layer > Blur
> Motion Blur.

Change the layer mode to Screen, and use your eraser
tool to erase the center part of your meteor, so the
zoom effect is only affecting the trail of the meteor.

Duplicate your main meteor layer again, and change
the mode to color dodge. Use your circular selection
tool to select the core of your meteor. Feather your
selection by choosing Select > Feather, and entering
a value of 5. Inverse your selection by choosing Select
> Inverse, and press delete.

That's about it, here is how mine turned out.
