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Space Science

Major Meteor Shower Next Weekend 141

Posted by timothy from the stock-the-bomb-shelter dept.
IronClad writes: "By some reports, the annual Leonid meteor shower should be the best show in decades, and possibly until 2099. With meteors peaking November 17-18, and particularly over the Pacific, now is the time to check the predicted local meteor flux and buy chips for those star parties. Anyone adding a wireless hub and laptops for a star+lan party?"
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Major Meteor Shower Next Weekend More

Major Meteor Shower Next Weekend

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  • When, where, how? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Zach` ( 71927 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @08:21PM (#2552210)
    How about some basic info on where to watch, eh?

    Gleened from Space.com [space.com] [space.com]

    For North American skywatchers, Earth will enter the heavier parts of the stream at about 11 p.m. EST on Saturday, Nov. 17. Activity will peak around 5 a.m. Sunday morning, when as many as 13 meteors per minute could be visible, likely for a stretch of time that lasts less than 1 hour. The peak corresponds to 4 a.m. CST, 3 a.m. MST and 2 a.m. PST.
    • How about some basic info on where to watch, eh?

      Like the sky?
    • I live in New York City. Basically, there isn't any place to go watch it... too many lights.

      sigh.

      Any suggestions from the /. community?

      • Re:When, where, how? (Score:2, Informative)

        by wnknisely ( 51017 )
        Head west toward the Poconos. Good, reasonably dark sky and about an hour and a half away from you.

        If you're into it, there's a number of people gathering at the Lehigh Valley Observatory sites (LVAAS [lvaas.org]). I'm going to take my class to the South Mountain site if the weather holds.
      • Delaware Water Gap (in NW NJ/East PA) has good skies, but the trick is finding a low horizon. The top of one of the smaller mountains works well. I found one that's only about an hour climb from a parking lot and has a good vantage point in most any single direction, but not the whole sky at once. Nearly 6th magnitude. Sorry I forget the name.
        Another option is to head down the NJ shore. Below AC where there are some smaller beach towns have decent skies in the east, but you may have to ignore with silly laws about being on the beach after dark for that.
        I'll be out of time for the storm, but otherwise I would identify a few possibly locations along comuter rail and then choose based on cloud patterns. NJT trains can take you to not-terrible skies (~4th magnitude). Connecting either a bus ro to the SEPTA commuter rail may be the easiest way to get down to 5th magnitude, but I don't have any specific recommendations.

  • important (Score:3, Funny)

    by unformed ( 225214 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @08:21PM (#2552212)
    info for all the little meteorites that haven't taken baths lately
  • Will East Tennessee get left out of this cool event, just like we are left out of reliable cable, good DSL and everything else I want?
    • Waaa Waaaaaa CRYYY!!! How about Western Kansas?? DSL is very very expensive. Most people haven't even heard of cable internet; in fact we just recently got digital cable service for tv. Cable internet is still a few years off. All that we common folk have
      for internet is dial up modems. Even if our ISP is 56k compliant, we still cant get the 48800 or 49333 speeds like we shoudl, no our phone company is still in the stone age so most phone lines around can't handle the load so we get stuck with 28800 as our max bps. I called the phone company and they too said it would be a few years before they updated around here, basicly said we live out in BFE and they have to take care of the big city whiners who think their cable internet service is tooooo sloooowwwwww waaaaaaaaaaa!!! i really (sniff) cry (sniff) every time i hear someone complain about shitty cable :'(
    • I live in East Tennessee and I have DSL and the choice of Cable Internet.

  • Key Tip: Get away from city lights and clouds (Score:5, Informative)

    by astrophysics ( 85561 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @08:23PM (#2552223)
    If you want a good view:
    - Get away from city lights. The farther the better.
    - Get away from cloudy regions. Duh.
    - Get lucky. Look at the right time. Only problem is that estimates of the right time are only estimates.
  • Is it just me, or is it every couple years that people say that we won't see "a show like this" for 50 years. I might watch, but I might not.

  • Great Discussion of This Exact Topic!! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Incongruity ( 70416 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @08:32PM (#2552250)
    For handy reference, this cool site, Slashdot, had great posting and discussion about this very topic on the 7th of this very month! Check it out here [slashdot.org]

    Seriously though, I just thought it'd be worthwile referencing a very similar posting here on /. just a few days ago. It is cool to see that the flux estimator link made it onto the main page. If it's accurate, it'll really help all of us strange enough to go out and look (me being one of them) to actually find the best meteor shower show.

  • Anyone from the area (see subject) have a good spot to watch from? I was thinking of going out to the Rincon Valley hills.

    Ideas?
  • This year is supposed to be special, with astronomers predicting anywhere from 800 (North America) - 8,000 (Australia) meteors visible per hour...

    Oh, so in other words, the conversion rate between American and metric is 10 metric units for each American unit. ;-)

  • Predictions and observing advice (Score:5, Informative)

    by wnknisely ( 51017 ) <wnkniselyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday November 11, 2001 @08:56PM (#2552292) Homepage Journal
    Here's a site [aero.org] that is predicting a ZHR (zenith hourly rate) of meteors during the height of the shower on the order of 1000-3000. Works out to one a second or so - which while not totally amazing - would be a much higher rate than I've ever seen.

    They've got two models and both seem to be in relative agreement. It all depends on how the Earth is oriented and moving through the comet trail and the exact geometry of the dust distribution in the trail. But what the heck - I've hung out before, maybe this will be my year to get lucky!

    For those on the East Coast, it'll probably be worth getting up a little (okay - a lot) earlier than normal. Check out Leo in the Southeast sky (about 45 degrees above the horizon) around 5 AM in the morning. That should get you right around peak.

    The rate should start to ramp up after midnight EST peaking just before dawn. Those to the west will get to see the decline.

    The only problem for those on the west is that with the constellation of Leo being the radiant (hence the name) and Leo being low or below the horizon, they'll be missing most of the show. It's just as bad or worse in Europe this time around, since they'll be in daylight during the predicted max.
    • It will be pretty bad since the peak will be around 11h00, 18h31 and 19h19 CET, on November the 18th, but you can still have a decent show the night between the 18th and the 19th.

      Anybody has some more information about the sighting in Europe?
  • In honor of the Leonids, thousands of identical stories - and identical posts!

  • Wow.... (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 )

    Hey, while we're out watching the meteors, I bet the /. crew will be trying to figure out how many copies [slashdot.org] of the same article they can dish out!

    C'mon guys, this is like what, 10 repeats in 2 weeks? It's getting ridiculous. Do you read any of these comments or what?

  • Posted just days ago!!! (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Leonid Meteor Shower [slashdot.org]

  • Actually... (Score:2, Informative)

    by mcarbone ( 78119 )
    timothy has it wrong. The Leonids are peaking on the night of November 18-19, not on 17-18.

    I live in Boston, but by an awesome coincidence, I will be in Australia on that very night. Here's to an awesome meteor shower!

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by SMN ( 33356 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @09:33PM (#2552378)
    I see that the estimator has been Slashdotted, but it looks like NASA has a mirror of the estimator on different servers. Check out http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html [nasa.gov].

    This concludes my karma whoring for the day =)

  • Meteor Shower?? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by kypper ( 446750 )
    Heh... I'm waiting for the bath.

    Rub-a-dub dub mates.
  • sweet, i'm going to be spending the next week in the remote areas of New Mexico, at about 6000 ft. the closest real town is over 50 miles away. this ought to be quite a show.

  • Bellis Is Approaching!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @09:46PM (#2552408) Homepage Journal
    Only six days until Bellis!!!!
  • I don't think that would work to well. Normally you need to get your eyes adjusted to low light in order to see a lot of meteors. I don't think staring at a laptop screen would help with that...

  • Radar observation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Darius ( 773 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @10:18PM (#2552467) Homepage
    My company [gsoft.com.au] makes atmospheric radar systems (eg directly measure winds, or meteor events). We are going to run a campaign in Western Australia (near Exmouth) during the Leonids.

    We may even have live updates on a web page during the show (if I write the code in time anyway :)

  • Can someone tell me what the estimates will be in Dallas for the duration of the shower? I can't view the page using Mozilla 0.9.5 on OS X. phooey :P

  • Already started (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BarefootClown ( 267581 ) on Sunday November 11, 2001 @10:47PM (#2552503) Homepage

    Methinks it has already started...Friday night, I was flying a Cessna 152 from Oklahoma City, OK to Indianapolis, IN. I saw several meteors, including a couple of strange ones--one was greenish in color, had a strobe-ish sort of effect, and appeared to be at about 20,000 feet; another was normal white, but again, looked fairly low. I was already talking to Center, and asked them about it, thinking maybe the Air Force was doing some sort of exercise, but they confirmed that there were no other aircraft in the area. There's some cool stuff up there, and even at 5,500 feet, you can see a whole lot more than you can on the ground. I will never forget some of the ones I saw last Friday.

  • To see the shower but TAKE your laptop. Sheesh. It'll be there when ya go back in, trust me.

  • Tokyo (Score:3, Informative)

    by mattr ( 78516 ) <{mattr} {at} {telebody.com}> on Sunday November 11, 2001 @11:10PM (#2552537) Homepage Journal
    From what I could get out of their bizarre applet and help from a GNIS server [nima.mil], It looks like Tokyo (Ikebukuro=3543'00"N,13943'00"E) shower will peak at 450/hour (telling the applet we're "downtown"), between 2 and 4 a.m. morning of 11/19 But the prediction [aero.org] at aero.org mentions both models, the more interesting of which says there will be much more (same time frame, 2-4 a.m. 11/19) as follows..

    The second significant peak will begin around 12 noon EST and last until 2 pm EST on the 18th of November. The best viewing for this peak will be over Australia and the Far East. The level of activity for this event could be anywhere from 7000 to 15000 meteors per hour!

    Anybody who can corroborate..

  • I really wish the timing for meteor showers would not conflict with my sleep schedule.

  • Why? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by purepower ( 231452 )
    How come every time I read about an upcomming meteor shower, they always say it's going to be the best ones ever, and the best one in the near future.
  • Is there any hope for us people on the East coast, or will there be a live webcast of it or anything, or are we screwed out of this like many other things that occur on the left coast. If anyone has more info I would be forever grateful for it. Thank you, that is all.
  • By some reports, the annual Leonid meteor shower should be the best show in decades, and possibly until 2099.

    Why is it that every time there's a major meteor shower, people say it's going to be the best show for the next hundred years? I've heard this said at least once a year since about 1994 or so.

  • WOOHOO! (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by smack_attack ( 171144 )
    Does this mean Osama and his buddies are going to dress up in purple sheets and Nikes and off themselves?

    I love metor showers!


  • Anyone adding a wireless hub and laptops for a star+lan party?"

    No... But I'll be adding a wireless keg.

  • Anyone know of a good spot to watch in the San Francisco Bay area? My first though was that the top of Mount Diablo would be far enough away from the light pollution to see it well, but the park closes at sunset.

  • If you have a wideband receiver you can count how many meteors pass per hour. Set the radio to 73.90 in FM mode and the sql to something like 3.
  • I've spent more nights than I care to remember out with my little red torch looking for leonids, taurids, younameitids with minimal success.

    My best exerience was a chance aurora a couple of years ago - huge pulsing green, red blue, white for about an hour - amazing. Didn't see more than half a dozen meteors though!

    Hopefully next weekend will be better. Hopefully.

    What we need is an email / SMS service that will inform us if its turning out good - so we can leap from bed and have a squiz out the window!

    Now THERES an /. make money idea! start charging us for heavenly activity warnings - I'd pay $20 a year for that kind of service!
  • Anyone adding a wireless hub and laptops for a star+lan party?


    No way! AT&T Starlan didn't talk wireless!

    I haven't touched that stuff since '91.... It's still too painful to think about. Think Ethernet on crack. :-)
  • Why is this news? Slashdot covered it [slashdot.org] only four days ago.
  • I only hope that Quake 3 runs in red-screen mode...
  • Beware if you use one of the predefined locations at http://leonid.arc.nasa.gov/estimator.html , at least for St. Louis the coordinates are way, way off.

    They say we're located at 43 North 85 West, which would put us where, like, Michigan or something? Were actually closer to 39 North 90 West. The timezone is also off, we're not GMT-7 we're GMT-6.

    Earl

  • Of course, this time of year, if you live in the Willamette Valley of Oregon (Portland, Salem, Eugene, etc.), you know to expect clouds and rain for this weekend.

    The upside is, you can drive to Central/Eastern Oregon and probably have clear weather, and less light pollution.

    • i am going to call my parents in Hood River that night... and ask if the sky is clear down there... if it is, i am gonna jet down there where there are no city lights...

      otherwise , i might try going to larch mountain lookout.
  • To get dark skies.

    here [darksky.org]

    From Long Island, looks like I either have to buy a boat to go into the ocean or drive 120 miles.

    See you near Monticello, NY Sunday morning!

  • Well to add to the influx of links I feel forced in justifying the pain involved in teaching my Father to create and maintain a website [uqconnect.net].

    It looks a little amateurish, but I recommend those interested in the field to take a look, with comments and information from Australia's lead Researchers/Observers of NEO's and Lunar Occultations. *Exit Stage Left*
  • The meteor storm is travelling at 160,000mph and will pass near Earth next weekend.

    Nasa has already taken steps to protect the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

    The controls for the countermeasures can be found here [squadron13.com].
    --
  • Will the metor showers be visible enough to be caught on standard photographic film ? Would one-minute or longer exposures with 1000+ ISO film catch much? Would B&W pick up more than color? I do not have access to anything greater than a 300 MM telephoto lens and have a Canon EOS 300 camera. As I live in Wellington, New Zealand I am alsowondering when the best viewing times are...
  • I very happy to hear this in advance it seems I always hear about these things after the fact lets see if the weather cooperates

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