Make sure to look UP tonight

Matthew

Matthew

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Matthew
Last night wasn't all that great, but tonight the Perseid meteors are supposed to peak:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/05aug_perseids/

I spent some time outside late last night, but didn't see any. There were some high cirrus, but visible stars. I did see one meteor, but it looked like it was moving in the wrong direction (left to right, instead of right to left from where I expected), so I don't know what that was all about.

Tonight is supposed to be better - I hope the clouds cooperate.
 
ooo ill have to check that out. we were derigging last night in the dark. the sky was amazing out in the country. perfectly clear skies but i didnt see any meteors.
 
The TAF for LIH isn't all that encouraging, but we'll lie out on the beach tonight and look. It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it.
 
The crescent moon, close to Saturn Venus and Mars was pretty spectacular as they all set about 2 hrs ago.

Perseus to the NE and Jupiter to the E should be visible to East and just starting to rise for the Central right about now. The meteors will look like they are coming from Perseus.

I'm headed outside in a few minutes (it's 10pm central, right now)
 
Yeah - 11pm and I can't keep my eyes open anymore. Didn't see any, either.
 
I saw two (the skies here aren't great, but you can make out the milky way at least).

First one was minor. The second one was easily visible for at least a second and it looked like it was trailing smoke!
 
Bummer. There's a cloud cover. NYC isn't the best place for stargazing anyway.
 
I just stepped outside for about 10 minutes (constantly moving to avoid mosquitoes) and saw two for sure, and possibly a third out of the corner of my eye. Interestingly, the two I saw for sure were traveling in almost opposite directions!
 
sba55 said:
The second one was easily visible for at least a second and it looked like it was trailing smoke!
Click to expand...

Yeah - smoke trails are cool. I think the earlier ones tend to show that more than the later ones, since they are skimming across more of the atmosphere - the later ones are coming more straight on. I think the upper atmosphere may still show some refracted sunlight so the smoke trails may be visible.

You had some pretty good conditions if you could make out the milky way.

We had a lot of haze last night, it really showed off the light-pollution, but didn't do too much for the seeing conditions. It was certainly not dark-sky where I was.

gprellwitz said:
Interestingly, the two I saw for sure were traveling in almost opposite directions!
Click to expand...

If you were able to back-track their paths to the same general area, then the were probably part of the same group.

The best shower I ever saw was about 10 yrs ago, in the winter. It must have been the Leonid shower. I went out into the back yard (facing west) just to see if there were any clouds. The meteor shower would have been coming from the east. I hadn't been out back for more than a few seconds, and my eyes weren't adjusted to the dark yet, but I saw streaks going overhead all the way to the western horizon. They were bright, and coming at a pace of every 20 seconds or so. I went out front and it was like watching that Windows screensaver, the one with the starfield that comes right at you. Way cool.
 
Matthew said:
Yeah - smoke trails are cool. I think the earlier ones tend to show that more than the later ones, since they are skimming across more of the atmosphere - the later ones are coming more straight on. I think the upper atmosphere may still show some refracted sunlight so the smoke trails may be visible.

You had some pretty good conditions if you could make out the milky way.
Click to expand...
This was my first smoke trail. I didn't even know you could see those.

There's no haze here and it's usually crystal clear. There's just a little light pollution from San Francisco across the bay (to the south), but not many people live north from here so the sky is dark there.
 
Last night I went outside at midnight. Saw nothing for the 10 minutes I stood looking up. At 0200 I went outside for :45 minutes. I saw 5 (one very longish and multicolor) and three probables. The probables were just outside my pheripery.

For the last month or so I've watch 5 planets come into view. The triple conjunction of Mars, Venus, and Saturn will peak tonigt just after sunset. Uranus is still high in the sky. Counting earth, that's 6 planets in view at one time. Very cool. Perseids peaking tonight makes it even more special.
 
I couldn't see any out the window of my commercial flight last night.
 
Too many clouds and too much rain tonight - might clear up later, but I'll probably sleep through any chance of seeing anything tonight.
 
I went outside around 3 am Eastern time and got to see one. I also saw the smoke trail or rather a fiery ball. Pretty awesome. I couldn't stand the bugs for much longer than the 10 minutes after that one. I probably missed the big show earlier.
 
Scattered clouds north of LIH. Didn't see any meteors where we could see clouds.

Back inside, more Mai Tais...
 
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