Bootid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

beanerspace writes: "It's a crap shoot, but some time around 3:00am EST tonight, put down the mouse and take a lookup the Big Dipper's tail. CNN, in an article entitled Meteor shower could be feast for eyes and ears reported that tonights display might be worth your while."

Comments

The leonids are the real deal and plenty of notice

[mc6809e]

The big showers coming up are going to be due to the leonids around November 18-19. Scientists have developed methods that allow for the accurate prediction of showers and storms for these meteors by looking at the perturbations of dust trails.

Check out this link to the Armagh observatory.

The method they use successfully predicted the peak to within about 5 minutes last year.

The estimates for the Americas this year are 2500 per hour and something like 30,000 per hour at peak in 2002!

Not to be too geeky, but...

[nick_danger]

...am I the only one that read the title of this article and saw Boot ID? And wondered if Meteor was some new file system for Linux?

I gotta get out more...

More meteors..

[Syn404]

Well, this article may be late so most of us probably missed that meteor shower, but fortunately there are 3 more meteor showers later this year. The next one is, of course, the annual Perseids shower in August.. Too bad I'll most likely be on a plane August 12, but until then, I'll hopefully have a nice view from the middle of the ocean, the weather permitting. (:

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Not the Wrong Day...

[Lethyos]

Just that this morning (0300EST,06/28/01) is in the range of activity. The article states: Although the shower peaks on June 27th, it takes place at lower intensities from June 26th until July 2nd.

Standing north of Pittsburgh, PA about 20km, I was able to spot one 'meteor' that I'm certain of (sudden point of light with tail appearing for a moment) to the upper-left of Big Dipper, and a few others that seemed really faint, so I'm not sure.

So, if you didn't watch it last night, keep your eyes fixed on that region. You may be lucky enough to catch at least one - which is a treat well worth the effort. :-)

the seeds of life

[deathcow]

The interesting thing about meteor showers is that they occur when we pass through the tail of comets. Successive orbits of the parent comets leave more meteorites for us Earthlings to enjoy on future Earth orbits.

Some people theorize that the very seeds of life are left in these trails, and are thereby delivered to the planets which orbit through them. There are and thousands thousands of comets in our system alone, each trailing their own brew of materials behind them.

Interesting no?

Leonids will be the big show

[imipak]

The Leonids are likely to produce a really spectacular show this November. You may recall that there's been considerable hype over this shower in the last few years. This is because the Earth's orbit intersects the densest part of the stream once every 33 years, and we're at that point roughly now. In addition, every few hundred years the Leonids produce a truly awesome outburst - rates of the order of 100,000 per hour. The last few years' results have allowed various models of the stream dynamics to firm up their numbers; the best model's predictions for last year were spot on. This same model predicts a large outburst in 2001.

NAMN (the North American Meteor Network) or the IMO (International Meteor Organisation, which is actually amateur - same as NAMN) are good starting points, or try the Google Directory or DMOZ Open Directory meteor sections for much more background reading. I strongly, strongly recommend doing some research before November, getting a bit of practice in, then do what I've done - book some time off work! :-)

--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"

Things to look up for (a whole month in advance)

[eXtro]

What's Up This Month is an up to date guide to astronomical events. It's got a daily to do list of things to look for as well as seperate areas for comets and meteors etc.

I noticed that the bootid shower isn't listed, which is odd, but its really a very good service.

Re:BootID Exploit cracks Earth's defenses!

[einhverfr]

Anybody else's initial reaction to this news the same as mine?

Until I recognized that it was referring to Bootes the constellation, my first impression was that it had somethhing to do with the MBR or maybe LILO or init processes...

Would that make the BootID shower something like a fork bomb?

High fidelity

[Graymalkin]

For those of you in Southern California the local astronomical groups have been able to cordon off a huge section of land in the Joshua Tree state park that is a light pollution free zone. I've been out in the park before and the night sky is great. Being able to see all of the stars on star charts is quite the experience for a city dweller like me. Joshua Tree is a ways from LA but it is worth the drive if you're at all interested in seeing a pretty awesome light show for free. I've seen a Leonid shower from the park and I lost count at 142 meteors. If you do go out there remember it is a desert and contains all the sorts of things deserts contains and lacks what deserts usually lack, namely water. Most of my 25 kilo bag was water and I took a purifier with me because there's a few streams in the area I was hiking. Run away from pulsating cacti and bushes that rattle.

Scared

[Goldberg's Pants]

Every time I hear about things like this, I can't help but think about Day of the Triffids.

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It would have been nice to know this YESTERDAY!

[Julius X]

...when the shower actually was.

Astronomers expect it to reach its peak Wednesday around 3 a.m. EDT

Which was 24 hours ago people......the article is dated two days ago. Someone's asleep at the wheel.

-Julius X

Re:It would have been nice to know this YESTERDAY!

[tiwason]

All is not lost...

Although the shower peaks on June 27th, it takes place at lower intensities from June 26th until July 2nd.

Although, yeah,, a little proof reading would go a long way on this site...

Re:It would have been nice to know this YESTERDAY!

[TrumpetPower!]

As I write this, the fortune at the bottom of the page reads:

Better late than never. -- Titus Livius (Livy)

So, not only is somebody alseep at the wheel, that somebody also thinks he's a clown.

(Yeah, I know the fortune is random.)

b&

You think we have nothing better to do?

[BIGJIMSLATE]

What, you think we have nothing better to do at 3AM in the morning? What, are we just a bunch of pathetic geeks who never venture out from behind our computers until the night has fallen and dead have risen?

Er...hm...uh....

Ah crap, you win. I'll be outside looking at the stars if anybody needs me.

BootID Exploit cracks Earth's defenses!

[maxwells_deamon]

Chicken Little Discovers New Exploit Attempt

Famous for her tales of "sky falling", Chicken Little today announced that her team of experts has discovered a new security threat: The BootID DOS Attack.

Users should wear strong headgear and avoid looking up while this attack is occuring. A patch for the hole in the sky that this attack is aiming for is in development.

The hacking community responded that basing security of any planet on blue sky and clouds was fool hardy. "We have been waiting for someone to notice the holes we have been punching in the sky over the last few years", rebutted Foxy Loxy.

Click here for background material!

Now we know where Pink Floyd came from

[BierGuzzl]

Damn, you gotta listen to the audio stream (which clearly indicates that the meteor shower already happened and that this article is a day late). Would be neat to clean it up a bit -- sounds like a flute in the background.

I'm not doing too badly!

[OpCode42]

Its only June and this is my second shower of the year :)