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Perseid Meteor Showers
obfuscated writes "'Flying gravel bank' attacks the Earth's atmosphere; damage unknown. Visible now and peaking on August 12th, the Perseid meteor shower is back to trained and amateur sky watchers. At its peak as many as 60 or more shooting stars can be visible per hour from the Northern Hemisphere. This year's viewing should be especially good since the 'Earth is expected to encounter the core of the Perseid swarm, where meteoroid concentration is densest, next Monday.' Space.com as well as MSN has the full text."
I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic during the height of the showers... does that mean I'll get a kick-ass view?
The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool. -Crowe
About time Earth had another shower - the smell's really starting to get to me
Taking the fam, going camping far far away from the city lights.
Have a nice weekend!
Think the media will blow this out of proportion?
I can just hear it...
"This just in: Meteor shower on collision course with earth! Could this be the end? We'll find out, right after this message from Charmin."
Don't expect we'll see much in Western Europe. There just aren't any wide open spaces any more.
Check out how bad it is on this map at Atlas
Maybe we should have a slashdot appeal to turn out all the lights on Monday night.
Here's wishing dark skies to everyone.
It'll be similar but the streaks will be going the other direction.
Actually, since God created the earth, and he also created Southern Hemisphere dwellers to be inferior to NH'ers, you wont see a damn thing. You are lucky to have stars. So stop whining. Just kidding ;) I really have no idea.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
1. Don't even bother with binocs, much less a scope.
2. Get outside of the city and lay on the hood of your car.
3.Bring a flashlight with a red filter to save your night vision.
4. The Perseids come from a point near the constellation Perseus (go figure). It's actually closer to Cassiopeia, which is much easier to find (it's the big W). Find this point for the best viewing.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Did you ever notice how news like this gets the crop circle nuts and alien zealots crawling out of the woodwork? Has there ever been any study that relates this kind of news with outlandish reports(aliens, I got probed and the lot.)? I would like to see those statistics.
I often like to sit out underneath the stars with a close girl-friend of mine, but one thing stands in the way of us seeing the natural beauty of the stars: Light Pollution.
When you mention this to people they often admit to not having noticed it before; after all, when was the last time you've been somewhere that strange sodium yellow streak wasn't shooting across the sky? If you weren't thinking about it you might take it to be a natural aura.
I saw a photo a while back (on the printed page, I've searched on Google and couldn't find it) of the night sky a 1000 miles west of Sydney Australia : the sky was still scared by the bright lights.
I found this picture on Google of light pollution from space: Light pollution over Canada circa 1975 As far as I am aware, this is of Canada, all though the picture isn't very clear I'm afraid it does illustrate a point about the long-reaching effects of light pollution.
On the greater impact outside of amateur sky watches, I can imagine this greatly hampers the efforts of earth-bound telescopes, and obviously explains why they are in such remote locations.
Is there anywhere on earth with NO light pollution?
Finding a dark sky near you.
It looks like I-35 is roughly the dividing line between a much lighter East and generally darker West. Luckily, I live just west of said road, and can head further west to watch from the top of a big bald rock.
> as many as 60 or more
It's bad enough that we have to put up with this kind of vague language in advertisements... but now in technical writing? "As many as" signifies an upper bound. "or more" extends that, which makes that bound meaningless. If some code takes "as much as 5 ms or more" to run, how fast is it? If a new PC came with "as much as 256 MB or more" RAM, would you buy it?
Argh!
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Theater/6882/ Triffids.html
You wont see anything unless the contellation Perseus is above your horizon, or at least very close to it. You may have a chance of catching some really cool earth-grazing ones...but if the radiant is below your horizon, your out of luck.
If cour curious, the radiant(the result of parallax making it seem to come from one point in the sky) is halfway between perseus and cassiopia(thats the 'W' Shaped one).
I've watched this shower for going on 20 years now, and it never dissapoints.
Saw this on the article over at Space.com:
Few Perseids are ever visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
So I guess you're out of luck, uh? (and me too, by the way)
It's two years old, but here is a really nice composite of world light polution, and a "brief explanation written by a professional astronomer."
Here's the story on being able to hear the Leonids?.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic during the height of the showers... does that mean I'll get a kick-ass view?
Depends on the direction you're flying.
- If perseus is behind you you'll get a kick-ass view.
- If it's in front of you you'll get an in-your-face view.
- If it's beside you you'll get an in-your-ear view.
B-)
But figuratively:
You'll get a good view if it's behind or in front - because you'll be looking to the sides of the aircraft (unless you're in the cockpit). Looking directly at the radiant or directly away from it is not too impressive. Looking 90 degrees from it gives you lots of pretty streaks to watch.
By the way - it ought to be GREAT this year. I was in Nevada over the weekend - about 5000 feet above sea level in a dark area - and there were already quite a few bright ones showing.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My birthday is the 12th - I really love this. There's just something really special about celebrating your birthday by watching a meteor shower.
I'm the stranger...posting to
According to the article, southern hemisphere won't see much. But, then again, most of the people who live in the northern hemisphere live in such densely-populated light-polluted ratholes they won't see much anyway ;)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Meteor Photography:
Materials needed:
SLR Camera
50mm f/2 or faster lense, or even better -- a fisheye lense
400 or faster film -- multiple rolls are good
Tripod
Cable Release or self-timer
Procedure:
Set up your camera on its tripod outdoors on the night of the 12th or 13th. Point it near the radiant (a few degrees off to one side is good) and wait for the action to start. Then, connect your cable release or set your self-timer and open the lense for a 2-minute or so exposure. Exact times will vary depending on how light-polluted your location is, but that's about good. Then, every two minutes close the shutter and advance the film. You'll get a lot of pictures of star trails and hopefully a few really great shots of streaking meteors. If you see a really great one where your camera is pointing, go ahead and advance right then -- no point in fogging the film further.
\
A well, maybe I should have left the fam @ home if I wanted a good view.
The weather was great, the skies were clear (for the first time in a week) and the campsite remote enough for a spectacular view of the sky.
But I was out cold for the good viewing hours both nights we were there.
As an aside -- I don't think I've ever got 3 "Overrated"s before!