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Meet The Leonids
Kathy Miles writes "The Leonid meteor shower is promising to be a 'once in a lifetime
event.' It's not hard to photograph meteors, a simple 35mm camera
that you can lock open the shutter on works fine. Here's complete
instructions for 35mm, video and digital cameras.And, on the same site
is information such as lore and myth, best way to watch meteors and times and skymaps for all US timezones. Happy Meteor watching!" And Geert Barentsen writes "As the adrenaline for the final Leonid meteor storm (November 19th) rises, one site seems to do a call to everybody to count the meteor activity and help science. With a few thousand meteors predicted per hour, it's going to be a busy night for true geeks :-)" Kevin Smolkowski writes "For the second year in a row, NASA will have Live Coverage of the 2002 Leonid meteor storm on Monday. Perfect for those of you surrounded by
city lights. The all night show is hosted by NASA astronomers.
They'll offer observing tips, answer phone calls from sky watchers,
and tour the skies with a video camera located at the Marshall
Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama." Update: 11/18 22:40 GMT by T : McGravin writes "Everyone should also keep an ear on the extraplanetary visitors, too. I'm going to go add some ear-flaps to the tin foil helmet that protects my brain from them, so I can hear the meteors."
Wasn't last year's Leonid meteor shower also a once-in-a-lifetime event? I thought this was more like an ~80-times-in-a-lifetime thing.
If you're not surrounded by insane light pollution ... make a point of watching this while you can. It may not be the same for years, maybe decades ...
I have done astro photos before and here is good tip when using a SLR camera:
To avoid wobbling the camera as you press the cable to start the exposure, just hold up a sheet of black paper in front of the lens. After the cable is dangling freely, remove the paper. When depressing the cable, do the same.
Also, for anyone with a Sony DV camera, the AE Candel Light mode works great for filming the showers.
Yesterday was beautiful and I was hopeful but today is looking pretty crappy.
Damn Washington weather is depriving me of the show of a lifetime.
On a better note I will get a full nights sleep.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Everyone said I was crazy when I moved 30 miles out from the city. Now, with no city lights, I'll have a perfect view of the shower! Won't all of my friends be jealous! ...Oh yeah. None of my friends care about meteor showers...
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Well shit. It's a bit late for that now. Oh well, I'll try and remember that in 30 years when the next one comes around.
Well, I have to admit that watching Leonid Breezhnev take a shower is not something that you can see everyday, but I think I'll pass anyway, thank you.
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Asking Slashdotters.. To go outside.. I don't know if this is an insult or a mistake.
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Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
For the second year in a row, NASA will have Live Coverage of the 2002 Leonid meteor storm
I wonder how they did this last year. Or did Nasa finally perfect its tachyon transceiver?
Anybody notice the stock photo in the NASA page? This picture. I think it's supposed to representing watching TV, but it's really a sad social commentary.
Here's a young boy, ready to go outside and move and run and play. He's got his cap on, and he's got his football under his arm.
But instead of choosing to play in the sun and use the arms and legs nature gave him to enjoy himself, he sits sullen and emotionless in front of a TV.
He chooses the bland garbage spewed forth by the corporate-run media, enticing him to stay on the couch, not to question authority, not take care of his health. They hope to sell him fast food, video games, and heart medication when he grows up.
Really quite sad.
Alternate explanation #1:
This poor little girl wants to play with her dolls and talk with her friends. But her father is a violent man, who regrets never having had a son before his wife's untimely demise. He forces her to hold a football and watch the game on TV. If she resists, she is soundly beaten. She quietly assumes the role of the son her father never had.
Really quite sad.
Alternate Explanation #2:
It's raining and the game was just cancelled.
Really quite sad.
Other that light pollution which will make viewing difficult for most city dwellers, we will have to contend with a full moon. Your best bet is to look towards the northwest or southwest to diminish the glare of the moon.
This will provide some interesting propagation on the VHF and UHF ham bands. Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake long enough to work a few stations on the ionized trails the meteors leave behind..
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
"For the second year in a row, NASA will have Live Coverage of the 2002 Leonid meteor storm on Monday" How exactly can you have 2 years of coverage of the 2002 Leonid meteor storm?
As has already been pointed out, there will be a full moon. Not only that, but at the peak viewing hours for the western continent inhabitants (especially those in North America) that pesky full moon will be almost exactly centered in the most active region for viewing.
Only the best and brightest will be visible, and though there's predicted to be more of them this year than typically the effect will be diminished by the lunar glow to a fairly typical rendition.
Any spoon would be too big.
I happened to be on a flight a few years ago (I think 1999) when it was a good year for the meteor shower. The show is even more fantastic from up above the clouds. The many colors you could pick out easily paid for the fare of the flight by itself, not that I planned it that way.
Too bad I can't justify getting up in a plane this year for the shower.
Asking Slashdotters.. To go outside.. I don't know if this is an insult or a mistake.
So that's what this is all about? All this talk about a shower was making me nervous.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
I just got back in (Tues. morning here in Japan,) after having not seen a single one. (Worst combination of time, location, moon, clouds.)
:-(
Last year was amazing...
-- My Weblog.
The reason last year was more of a once in a lifetime is because this year there's a full moon. Last year there was no moon and thus far better viewing conditions.
"Would you rather have a playstation addicted dork wearing a star wars t-shirt?"
Go to this site to determine the best viewing time for your location and the predicted count.
Phoenix
For any individual viewer observing the Meteor Shower is a safe event; the risk of damage from a meteor is much lower than the chance of being eaten by a bear during the same time frame.
However - for the Earth as a whole that is not true. If one of the meteors which broke off the comet is only 50 or 60 meters in diameter the result would be an impact similar to Tunguska in the last century; a 20 to 30 megaton blast capable of destroying a city and killing millions.
The chance that we will lose a city somewhere on earth to an impact event during this century is about one in five.
Me, I think I'll spend the night in a windowless room and come out in the morning to a world full of people blinded by the mysterious alien rays, but I'll have to watch out for the Triffids roaming the landscape eating all and sundry.
;-)
Of course, if John Wyndham had written Day of the Triffids after the advent of the Internet, he'd have used geeks as his accidentally-sighted protagonists instead of a bandaged hospital patient. The hardcore geeks will probably be taking advantage of the bandwidth everyone else isn't using 'cause they're all outside skywatching, and will catch their meteors on the NASA site
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Here in Southern New Hampshire the skies are clear even if they're not dark (full moon plus all the man-made light). I just saw 5 meteors in about 15 minutes of watching, 3 whose trails stretched nearly halfway across the sky and the other 2 were little ones.
Sorry about those of you whose weather is working against them. I'm going back out to watch after grabbing another couple of layers of blanket.