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Leonid Meteor Shower Observation Tips
mao che minh writes "For those of us around the world planning on stepping out and witnessing the Leonid meteor showers next week (November 19th), NASA is running an article that will help you maximize your meteor shower viewing enjoyment, straight from the experts' mouths."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the same image as this (click image for full-res) which doesn't purport to show the 'wasted' light but is being used to study urbanisation?
not trolling - just had that awesome image on my desktop for ages and recognised it straight away!
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
...and as it's "No matter where you live" it might have been better to quote local time rather than UT, Internet time or Stardate.
But why is light at night automatically considered wasted? I would guess that a significant proportion of this light would come from home lighting (internal) and also car headlights which surely can't be considered wasted light? And is street lighting really a waste? Not only does it provide better driving conditions, but it also provides some measure of security.
I'm sure there is lots of light that doesn't need to be turned on at night (office buildings) and is wasted, and I imagine it probably correlates quite well with city size, but it's not all wasted.
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
The last Leonid shower I saw was in 1998 while I was doing some work at the Woodbury Research Facility... It was quite a good show and since this place is in rural Georgia, it was extremely dark... I tried looking at last year's shower, but the light situation in suburban Philly is horrible..
One other fun thing that I've found to look at is occultation around the edge of the moon. On occasion, mountains on the moon obscure stars passing near the horizon for a few minutes. With a small scope, it's really cool to watch them disappear and reappear along the edge. You can find occultations listen in Astronomy Magazine...
Happy Viewing...
I saw the shower last year and it was incredible. We saw hundreds if not thousands of meteors. At some points, you couldn't look anywhere in the sky and *not* see a meteor. It was truly amazing. If this year is half as good as last year, it should be pretty cool.
However, no matter how many meteors there are and how often they come, it seems to be VERY difficult to capture them on film. Using an SLR camera with a cable release and a tripod, a friend and I used something like 5 rolls of films and probably only got 15-20 usable pictures that had meteors in. (You can check them out here at peterswift.org. And they weren't joking about light pollution either! We were pretty far out in the country in North Central PA at Camp Susque, but even the lights from a tiny town with one gas station and a restaraunt really made a lot of the pictures have big bright spots (and the town/village was about 3-4 miles away!).
The anti-salmon
I watched the meteor shower last year (which was incredible btw..) from the village of Trout Run, PA. Trout Run is in north central PA, about 20 miles from Williamsport (the closest town of any size). Trout Run has a gas station and a restaraunt that are open 24 hours a day, so they have normal "gas station" type lights. However, I was watching the meteor shower from camp susque which is about 4 miles down the valley, and it isn't a straight valley either...anyhow, we took a lot of pictures and in several of them, there is a SIGNIFICANT glow from the SINGLE gas station that is over 4 MILES away and partially obscured by mountains! It blew my mind..I didn't realize how bad light pollution was until then...I don't think there is any place in the US where you can get a truly dark sky.
The anti-salmon
A full cut-off streetlight can get away with half the wattage of a regular streetlight. The light fixtures themselves cost the same. The light level at the ground is the same.
You can identify a full cutoff light if you look at it directly from the side. When it's on, you won't be able to see the bulb.
Full cutoff lights are superior in that they don't produce glare. How much can a person see if a light is shining right in their eyes? Not a lot. Try it with a flashlight, and the hazard of shining a streetlight directly into a driver's eyes will become apparent. Harsh lights also create harsh shadows that are ironically EASIER for a prowler to hide in. A light going straight down doesn't cast a shadow, and minimizes those hiding places.
This situation is the ideal win-win situation. For everyone concerned, astronomers, drivers, taxpayers, bird lovers, and security conscious homeowners a full cutoff light is the best choice.
This is America, damnit. Speak Spanish!
Wondering if anyone can tell me what equipment do I need to watch the meteor shower?
I want to take pictures of the night.
Any preparation is needed??