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Geminid Meteor Shower
Target Practice writes "Is it an asteroid? Is it a comet? Who cares? According to Sky and Telescope's website, 3200 Phaethon has been spewing chunks into our atmosphere for the past 150 years, and tonight, after the lan party, you can step outside at two or three A.M. and see the best light show yet - topping off at 75 meteors per hour! Be there..." Space.com has another story.
Is it just my growing awareness, or have there been more meteor showers over the past few years then there normaly is?
yeah, 75 per hour. right, like i'll fall for that again! i was the shmuck standing around at 5am for the leonids only to see maybe 10.
find some other chump.
Go read some bible: nubible.com
It has been raining all day.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
It's SNOWING where I am, you insensitive clod!
Maybe the meteor shower will bring an earlier end to DirecTV Internet...
Or did anyone else read this as "Nude Ghosts in the Shower"?
No meteors in the Bay area.
San Francisco and friends are getting 6-12 inches of rain this weekend. Or several feet of snow if you're in the mountains. Might be a better time to go skiing or snowboarding.
The Geminids were pretty good, last year, though.
Sex - Find It
I'm no astronomer, but isnt it interesting in the least that the orbit is so close to earths with such a similiar length in orbit? Should not the trajectory/composition/dating be studied for maybe relevance in say, the formation of the moon or other interesting local phenomena?
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
One thing better than the Leonids last month: The moon will be only 70% full tonight, and it'll set earlier.
The bad thing is, it's not as spectacular a show as the Leonids, all things being equal.
i'm normally seeing lights and showering meteors myself anyways...
MADD SCIENTIST SHALL REIGN AGAIN!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
According to the weather channel, there will be heavy blizzards across the states, so you will not be actually see the meteor shower :(.
you just have been trolled! Read at -1 for more troll wonders, try trolling yourself, I did, and I will never look back!
I don't know what a troll is! Someone just define it for me please.
SONY. Because caucasians are just too damn tall.
75 showering in one hour? In Soviet Russia you are not shower 75 time whole life!
the atmosphere "spews chunks" into 3200 Phaethon.
It is a precursor to attack by hostile aliens, lead by an interstellar tyrant named Mongul. He means to create Warworld! Where's Green Lantern when you need him?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Enjoy the show tonight. Think of me while you're out there.
*sniff*
RTFM; please, I beg you.
I woke up for the Leonids this year. First time I've EVER woken up in the middle of the night to see a meteor shower. Supposedly the BEST of this century. I saw stars. Didn't see a single falling one. I stood out there in the freezing $@#%ing cold, and couldn't get back to sleep for two hours, making me a mess at work the next day.
So, I think it's fair to say I'll pass on this one.
As to "are there more of these?" Nope. We have had a few spectacular shows in the past few years but nothing statistically unusual or anything more then wider reporting and slightly more accurate predictions.
Usual tips apply: Get out of the city, away from parking-lot lights, hills help block glare, let your eyes adjust, remember that a clear sky is COLD, binoculars are useless for this but entertaining for looking at other things like nebula and Jupiter's moons, look up online for tips regarding astrophotography and no your camera flash won't help...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Two or three AM? What kind of wimpy LAN parties do you have?
And you my friend are a numbskull, if you think that a meteor shower is worth quitting my LANfests at 2 am.
According to the Article Peak activity is projected around 4 a.m. EST (1 a.m. PST) with ideal dark-sky conditions, at least 60 to 120 Geminid meteors can be expected to burst across the sky every hour. They will be hitting Earth's Atmosphere at 22 miles per minute.. Insane..
Trolls are posts written to get people to look like idiots by making them reply to the nonsense post. Good trolls will not be caught, bad ones will not get replies (dont feed the trolls). A good troll on slashdot is posted about once a week, but they are every where on usenet You will know if you fell for it if the troll replies with YHBT (you have been trolled). Search google for more info about trolls!
I think I saw Data's remains burning in the upper atmosphere...
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Trolls are posts written to get people to look like idiots by making them reply to the nonsense post
idiot.
hey, now you're been flamed, too.
What's a troll?
i like it, it's subtle. my hat is off to you, sir.
Actually, there have been more meteor showers lately. This is obviously the beginning of an attack by the dread meteoric weapons of the planet Zarquon. Of course, now that you've found them out, they'll have to come up with some other ploy...
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Thanks, I appreciate it, even though now both of us look like jackasses. Many thanks.
I take it you didn't catch the Monday Night Football game where John Madden got all meteorological with the tellistrator. God damn that was so sweet I felt it in my heart.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Do not be tempted, young skywatcher, by the fact that your northern location provides almost twelve hours of darkness. This is foolishness, and a chasing after the wind.
Heed my warning! Else you too will spend two-and-a-half hours each way driving out past the mountain range in hopes of the 'continental divide' effect providing clearer skies than the rest of the west coast. This too is foolishness, and a chasing after the wind.
Seattlites, do not be fooled by such tools of deception like "sky reports", "radar images", "high pressure areas", and "friends calling who are near there"!
Sky reports are a fabrication of your enemy. Radar images and high pressure areas are fiction created by those who sell gasoline and coffee. Your friends are already in on the deception along with NASA. And they are at home in bed.
Stay home, young Washingtonian, and get some sleep. Lord knows it's dark enough.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Personally, I can't wait to get up in the middle of the night to watch this
Enjoy it those what can.
.... this metor shower is going to be a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME[or close to it] event!
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" C'mon, fellas, it's Friday night. Why not get away from the computer and go somewhere that has actual, live girls? Maybe try talking to one? Real girls are even more fun than Autopron's [autopron.org] website!"
Of course they are. Were do you think I learned about sockets, and ports?
I used to go out regularly for showers, usually the Perseids. It's usually too cold for the Geminids.
/. headline.
But after last year's Leonids, where I got a 7,000/hour rate -- 2 per second for a sustained 15 minutes -- in Japan, it's hard to go out for the regular showers again, where even witha claimed rate of 75/hour you are likely to see fewer without the best conditions.
Pictures are here and here for 2002.
Even this year's show, which got up to 600/hour at the peak,and thus the 2nd best show in my experience, was a letdown.
Of course, I missed the 1966 show, being too young. Joe Haldeman saw it and told me it was like standing on the bridge of the Enterprise and watching the stars go by. He said for the first time he really could understand how he was standing on a planet moving in space.
But that was an estimated 70,000 per hour rate.
We won't see that again from the Leonids for about 97 years, if we see it then. It is possible another surprise show could come now that they are getting better at predicting, but I doubt it.
So yes, the past few years have shown an abundance of good shows. There was also a good Perseids show in the mid 90s, about 300/hour just after its comet went by. But the show is over for now, and I doubt the Geminids rate a
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
I remember when the orange streetlamps started to be installed in the 70's. Before that, all streetlamps were of the bluish variety and gave very little light pollution. I have no idea why they all use orange ones now, I guess they are cheaper? I think the orange ones are called "sodium vapor."
I wish we could go back to blue, or at least redesign the orange ones so that they don't shine so much light into the sky. I remember as a kid looking up and seeing the milky way. Now I'm lucky if I manage to see Jupiter through the orange haze.
Three or four years ago, the head of the planetarium and observatory in Bradenton, FL was arrested while shooting out streetlamps near the observatory with a shotgun. I totally understand that guy. He was just fed up.
As an astromoner, I'm always pleasantly pleased when I see these proto planets raining down upon us from the heavens.
This particular shower comes to us all the way from Uranus, travelling across almost the entire galaxy just to reach earth.
It's awe-inspiring.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
> I woke up for the Leonids this year. First time I've EVER woken up in the middle of the night to see a meteor shower.
Lets just shorten that to "First time I've ever woken up in the middle of the night" and I'd call it good to go. I too woke up early to see them, and that was the first time I can remember that I had EVER seen the sun rise and sleeping during that same night (staying up all night doesnt count)
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
Conventional meteor showers come from comets, ice, and rock and material from them is jerked off when they approach the sun, creating those large tails trailing the objects and leaving clouds of gas and dust.
When the Earth plows through such debris patches, minuscule comet fragments burn up in the atmosphere and light up the nighttime sky.
An article I read on Netscape.com said, however, that "the Geminids are linked to 3200 Phaethon, an inner solar system object that lacks many qualities of comets in the neighborhood."
"3200 Phaethon doesn't sprout a tail when it comes close to the sun. It doesn't have a halo or a coma," is a quote from a NASA bulletin on these latest showers.
One other thing that people don't realize, though, is that weather does prohibit good viewing sometimes. It's winter in North America and many of us get snow or hail on an almost daily basis in December and January.
Maybe we could all post pictures of this as the event comes closer to starting. I'll probably have my brother in law out in Phoenix point the Web cam out the window to see if I can't catch a glimpse of some of this latest Geminid shower.
The Geminids are the workhorse of meteor showers. They appear year after year, not spectacular, but guaranteed. The Earth passes through a large cloud of debris, and meteors are visible each night for over a week. The density of the meteoroids left over by the astreoid is greater than the cometary debris of usual meteor showers. Therefore, the meteors are very bright and sometimes very colourful. Go see them and enjoy.
Veni, vidi, vici.
I'm all meteored out from all the really late-night viewings I've done these last two years. There're other things to look for up in the night sky too, y'know.
For example, next Tuesday, Saturn will be in opposition. During opposition, you'll have a chance to see Saturn's rings to the fullest.
some of us can just kill the lights, plop down in a beach chair in the back yard, and watch for meteors while sipping a corona or three and listening to the multitudes of small creatures hidden in the trees chirping contently.
Now when my arms get stiff from fragging geezers on ut2k3, I can go outside, stare straight up and get a crick in my neck. Quite an action-packed evening I'm looking foward to!
Last night (December 12th) I went outside here in New Mexico at about 12:00pm. I looked up for about 30 seconds and saw a gigantic meteor cut across the sky. Usually they look like slivers, but this looked like an actual ball of fire that streaked across the and then was gone.
Of course, being in New Mexico, it's always possible that this was a missile test. Hehehe, what a world.
I wonder how many space-geeks are also trekkies. They could have some big decisions to make what with Nemesis also out tonight
Of course, for many meteors might be a very fitting finale to the night of a trek movie.
i've heard that the human eye processes blue light the least accurately. (hence blueblocker glasses)
from my color studies, i know that blue and orange are opposite on the color wheel.
it's possible that the orange light is the most accurate....and in low lighting conditions, maybe your eye needs less of the orange light.
i think your observation about lighting pollution is flawed if you are considering the COLOR of the light to be the source. (though i'm not ruling it out).
other explations:
- shear quantity...in the past lower light levels were acceptable. current home associations and city codes may be forceing more lumens per square foot in any given situtation.
-more air polution. this could be another answer. in a city like san antonio, our air has ONLY worsened over the last 20 years. (if you are thinking about cities in california that might have a reverse trend)
-where you live now might be different then where you grew up
etcetcetc
it "spews" occasionally too
just read elsewhere in this thread that shear quantity is pretty much the problem.
not the color.
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If I saw hundreds, and you saw none, what does that make you think? That the shower was a dud, or something else?
As a former (actual) Washingtonian, and current Washington state resident, I take offence at the use of the term Washingtonian. A Washingtonian is someone who lives in Washington DC.
Er something.
hahaha.
why isn't this modded up?
3200 Phaethon's halfhearted attempt at mass destruction of all life on the face of our planet is bound to fail due to the fact that the meteors they are sending are so small that they are burning up on entry. However, this doesn't excuse what can only be construed as an act of war. America, as the world's leader, needs to do two things. 1) Adjust the Star Wars project to defend from extraterrestrial attack, 2) start manufacturing space-capabale war vessels. Once #2 is complete, we can send our armed forces to wipe them of the face of their miserable-- wait, this is a planet we're talking about, right?
It is an evil little man that lives under a bridge. I suppose he has a wireless net connection for his laptop.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
Last year, near Rochester, NY, I took my 8 year old and 12 year old out at 4 AM to see the meteor shower. We counted over 100 in about 30 minutes, and got sick of counting. It was totally awswome. We took out a tarp which we spread in a field, and crawled in our sleeping bags.
We stayed out for about 2 hours. We were still seeing 1 every couple of minutes when we went back inside.
If you had your eyes open, and were looking anyplace in the sky, you couldn't help but see them.
But in Soviet Russia, the Meteors study YOU!
so Phaethon is spewing chunks from Uranus?
Dude, sick.
</terrible terrible pun>
3) ??? 4) Profit!
Here's a way to hear it even if you can't see it.
...trolls respect you!
I think a good troll divides the moderators passionately on both sides, causing them to expend a maximum number of points to moderate the post. Preferably, the post remains with a fairly high mod. One of my best efforts expended something like 25-30 mod points, but only stayed level 1. I've had others that burned mod points and finished at 3 or 4, but never that many mod points.
Believe it or not, I think you are actually touching on an important issue--the Slashdot moderation system is linear and that limits us. It should be possible for Slashdot users to choose to regard trolling as positive or to regard any other type of moderation as negative, positive, or weighted. Only like humor half the time? Weight Funny 0.5. Totally serious? Funny gets weighted -2.
So how about it Slashlords? How hard would it be to add a "weighted" moderation preference to our comment viewing so that we can choose to inhabit obscure corners of the N-dimensional "modspace"?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Obligiatory John Wyndham plug:
Day of the Triffids.
This will be the doomsday of our planet as we know it. Our genetically modified planlife will rise and overtake us as the meteors blind as as they activate warheads in satellites.
I'm just glad I watched Nemesis before it all ended...
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Pfft. What a freakin' troll.
gack! Pardon the speeling pleese.
Do you always talk out of your ass? The smell is unbearable.
In the footsteps of alterslash comes another slashdot summariser - Hoping to ease your slashdot browsing.
This is the story with all links pointing to the google cached versions. See Merkac Dot for the full summary
Geminid Meteor Shower Space [G] | Posted by michael on Friday December 13, @06:54PM
from the stardust dept.
Target Practice writes "Is it an asteroid? Is it a comet? Who cares? According to Sky and Telescope's [G] website, 3200 Phaethon has been spewing chunks [G] into our atmosphere for the past 150 years, and tonight, after the lan party, you can step outside at two or three A.M. and see the best light show yet - topping off at 75 meteors per hour! Be there..." Space.com [G] has another story.
Because I don't have any fucking points.
all those times mentioned are us-based. I'm no astronomer, but will we see these in Europe?
Yesterday when driving I saw the BIGGEST shooting star in my life. It was huge and it elongated itself down for what felt like ten seconds (although, obviously, it wasn't even close), and it went STRAIGHT down. It was the most impressive thing I've seen from the skies, and I am wondering if it is a part of this meteor shower.
Mmmm stars and ... "Taken" .... it was a GOOD show.
Low-Pressure Sodium produces the yellow light you are talking about. High-Pressure sodium lights, like those found in a lot of the US, produces the orange light everyone is talking about and produces light everywhere from near infrared to blue. In fact, the pressure is high enough that there is a sodium absorption at the sodium wavelengths.
I stepped outside after the lan party; I looked up to the stars. I felt a slight rumbling down below. Low and behold, I bagan to spew chunks of a different kind. Brown chunks, orange chunks,... Green Chunks!!! Ah but my chunks blended well with the stars as they shot by. My Pie in the sky... if you will.
... ;)
Because its raining out, and if I can see them, we're screwed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Was I the only one to read that as rocket spaceship? Need coffee now... Need coffee...
Money for nothing, pix for free
Once again, this information could have been useful had I got it earlier!
As a lifelong resident of "the northern hemisphere" I can say that there's no need to "bundle up warmly!" to see the atmosphere burn. It's only winter according to the calendar. It's really fall. It's 4am here, and the temps just now dipped below freezing. For those whose idea of "the northern hemisphere" is Georgia (the US version, that is), let me explain:
Above 50F, no special precautions are needed.
Between 30 and 50, a sweater, light coat, or other provision is recommended but not required.
Between 0 and 30, a coat is recommended or required, depending on wind and one's metabolism.
Between -40 and 0, "bundle up warmly" is a damn good idea.
I've only been in -40 degree weather once, but it sucked. At that point, you don't bundle up warmly, you just try not to leave the house. Which is good, since tractors (and probably cars too) get real pissy at those temps, and want tons of ether before they'll start.
That's my "wimpy city folk" rant for the day. Thank you for your participation.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Heading to and from an awesome techno party me and my friends caught about 40 or so 'shooting stars.' What's amazing is this was all from passenger and driver side windows. I would guess that we had around a 30% view of the sky. Granted we have a great advantage, living out in country Texas there aren't very many of the city lights to obscure the stars. In fact it's actually hard to make out many of the constellations because there are _too many_ stars up there. It was awesome, and an excellent begining and end to an excellent night.
Not enough meteor baths. Slashdotters will never get clean like this, but at least these meteors don't leave a ring around the Earth for us to clean.
http://uregina.ca/~kleinjoh/images/gem1.jpg
/.'ed too quickly. Not that they are wonderful pictures, they are just my second and 3rd pictures of meteors ever. I got 2 Leonids in one shot [ pic available from another website].
http://uregina.ca/~kleinjoh/images/gem2.jpg
Not linked so they aren't
I used a Canon Powershot S30 digital, ISO400 setting, 15 second, 2.8fstop, and 2 second timer with a cardboard "tripod", and warm clothes with luck.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The site demands cookies and therefore will lose one geek as a customer.
Cookie free in Kentucky
It seems more like a rule than accident that these posts about meteors, most likely visible all over the world, do not tell the timezone. At 3 A.M tells me nothing. Annoying
How's this for convienient? A saturday night in New Zealand between midnight and 2am (local time) and we start seeing quite a few (maybe a dozen or so over that period), while relaxing in a spa pool ...
(remember its "Summer" at xmas time here!)
Cool ;)
No, it's Superman!
why the heck would you mod that down as offtopic?
i have been a moderator a ton of times and only once have i used a negative mod....why would you use it for that post? That's pretty ontopic to me, especially since the next one down on the page is +5 funny for saying snow instead of rain.
If anybody metamods this one be sure to disagree
sheesh
//FIXME: Bad
It is exactly what me and my friends did. We left a LAN party at 4:00AM and we saw some "shooting stars". How did /. know that we were going to have a LAN party? The editors know the future.
Moderators on CRACK again.
First post, my first.
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con-men. That's the way businesses get started. That's the way this
country was built.
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