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Catch (Watch) A Falling Star
tkrotchko writes "The first meteor shower of the year peaks early tomorrow morning. The Lyrid Meteor shower started April 16th but peaks Sunday morning between 2 AM and 5 AM. MSN has a good overview of the Lyrid, but if you intend on watching, astronomy.com has a map showing you exactly where to look. My experience with meteor showers in the past has been hit or miss; most are a bust, but occasionally, there are some pretty spectacular showers."
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My experience has been that you can see meteors pretty much any time of year... given a few conditions:
Clear skies. (Duh.)
Dark skies. Get well away city lights. View during a new moon, before moonrise, or after moonset.
Patience. Take a blanket and a pillow with you. Throw them on the ground and get comfortable. Give your eyes a good twenty minutes to get fully accustomed to the dark. Keep watching the sky. "Widen" your vision: be sensitive to your peripheral vision.
There are many minor showers that occur throughout the year. My experience has been that if it's dark and clear, and you're patient you can see shooting stars pretty much any time.
My grandparents once lived in rural Alabama. After family visits to their farm, while the womenfolk said their goodbyes, I would go outside with my Dad and Grandad, and we'd just watch the skies. On almost every occasion, we'd be seeing meteors within ten minutes of watching, and the longer we watched, the faster they'd come.
Don't wait for a meteor shower. Get out now and watch.
--Jim
Has nobody heard of the Quadrantids? Usually peaking either January 4th or 5th, it's one of the best of the year, usually hitting a peak rate between 40 and 60 meteors an hour.
Okay, not the most convenient (the Perseid's have that one locked up) for the northern hemisphere crowd, but don't write them off just 'cause you don't want to get your butt frozen off.
-Joe
CmdrTaco's first shower of the year peaks early tomorrow morning. His shower started April 16th but peaks Sunday morning between 2 AM and 5 AM. MSN has a good overview of the shower, but if you intend on watching, kuro5hin.org has a map showing you exactly where to look. My experience with CmdrTaco's showers in the past has been hit or miss; most are a bust, but occasionally, there are some pretty spectacular showers."
Got Rhinos?
Nothing like a good meteor shower to brighten your evening. I usually don't have a lot of luck with the Lyrids, but I have spotted a few over the past few nights (in FL).
My best luck is with the Perseids shower which is in August, IIRC. Nothing like seeing that from the top of a mountain in Colorado a few years ago.
Anyway, this is good stuff. Any of you code-hackers that plan to be awake tonight, or exam-studiers, or graveyard shift workers, etc. I highly suggest taking a little break this evening and stepping outside. (I personally will be having an intermission in the Cowboy Bebop marathon I am having tonight for this).
"Falling stars like jewels flung across the sky..." (author?)
Take care all. No matter what you are doing or what problems you may have or what is on your mind, take a few minutes and bask in the beauty of the universe this evening.
Ok, I'll stop being a sap now. Back to your regularly scheduled Slashdot.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The fact that it's ASP doesn't break anything. I've coded ASP (admitedly not my platform of choice, but I'll take that over static) and tested it in IE, Netscape, lynx, opera, konquerer, whatever on many platforms. It's just plain old bad HTML design. Go run it through one of the online html debuggers at w3c or something and see what the offending tag is.
This forecast from a local TV station site doesn't instill much confidence -
Tonight: showers and thunderstorms likely. Some thunderstorms may be severe with heavy rainfall. Low 60 to 65. Northeast wind 10 to 15 mph becoming southeast. Chance of rain 70 percent.
I suppose there could be a gap in the clouds. Maybe I could just break out my cache of fireworks. Or if the thunderstorms are that severe I could commemorate Ben Franklin (which I kind of did by accident a few days ago with a charged capacitor from a camera flash... wups).