Sharing the Perseids With #Meteorwatch 55
astroengine writes "The Perseid meteor shower is just beginning as the Earth passes through the dusty trail left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle. The meteor count is set to peak on Aug. 12. In a grand social media experiment, a guy (in a shed) located in the south of the UK is restarting #Meteorwatch, a Twitter-based community of shooting star observers. Last year, during the Geminid meteor shower, thousands of 'virtual observers' participated, making this one of the largest astronomy gatherings of its kind. With some new gadgets and a Hollywood-style #Meteorwatch trailer at his disposal, Adrian West is spending many sleepless nights counting meteors with the rest of the world." It's too bad it doesn't get dark until after my kid's bed time. In another year or two, I really am looking forward to exposing him to the Perseids.
Re:Hmm? (Score:3, Interesting)
So would I.
However, we're going to have partly cloudy skies and it's not dark 24 hours a day - at least not where I'm at.
I do spend a lot of time encouraging people to get out there. My kids are older, and it's very special to take them out of the city and looking up at the full panoply of stars. I've seen thousands of meteors myself, but last year I saw dozens of people online who had just seen the first meteor of their lives thanks to our encouragement to go look up.
Seriously - go spend your time watching for them. If you are going to tweet you saw one, don't just say, "I saw one." Post it so that it can be counted and we can do some real science with it. http://meteorwatch.org/meteor-map/ [meteorwatch.org]