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Space Science

Perseid Meteor Showers 99

Posted by michael from the crop-circle dept.
obfuscated writes "'Flying gravel bank' attacks the Earth's atmosphere; damage unknown. Visible now and peaking on August 12th, the Perseid meteor shower is back to trained and amateur sky watchers. At its peak as many as 60 or more shooting stars can be visible per hour from the Northern Hemisphere. This year's viewing should be especially good since the 'Earth is expected to encounter the core of the Perseid swarm, where meteoroid concentration is densest, next Monday.' Space.com as well as MSN has the full text."
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Perseid Meteor Showers More

Perseid Meteor Showers

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  • I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic during the height of the showers... does that mean I'll get a kick-ass view?
    • It means if your luck goes bad, you may just get your ass kicked by falling rocks. :)
    • I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic during the height of the showers... does that mean I'll get a kick-ass view?

      Up-close and personal, you might even say!
    • Considering the very limited sky view from an airplane's window, you might as well not see anything at all. Specially if the lights are on (you may have some luck with light off).
    • I'll be in a plane over the Atlantic during the height of the showers... does that mean I'll get a kick-ass view?

      Depends on the direction you're flying.

      - If perseus is behind you you'll get a kick-ass view.
      - If it's in front of you you'll get an in-your-face view.
      - If it's beside you you'll get an in-your-ear view.

      B-)

      But figuratively:

      You'll get a good view if it's behind or in front - because you'll be looking to the sides of the aircraft (unless you're in the cockpit). Looking directly at the radiant or directly away from it is not too impressive. Looking 90 degrees from it gives you lots of pretty streaks to watch.

      By the way - it ought to be GREAT this year. I was in Nevada over the weekend - about 5000 feet above sea level in a dark area - and there were already quite a few bright ones showing.
  • About time Earth had another shower - the smell's really starting to get to me
  • Taking the fam, going camping far far away from the city lights.
    Have a nice weekend!
    • Heh - Living in the sticks suxors when it comes to broadband internet access and other things that city-dwellers take for granted. But I won't have to go anywhere to see this. So while you're driving, I'll be sitting on my back patio sipping just one more latte and enjoying the show.

      C Ya! ;-]

      • Yeah, a latte you had to make yourself. Living in the country suxors when you got to make your own lattes if you lived in the city, you could have paid some chump to make one for you.
        • Do you have any idea of the rape this planet undergoes to produce just one coffee bean? I'll bet ole Ralph wouldn't be too happy with you for supporting an industry that pillages the earth. Also, what in the hell are you doing in a city? Didn't you know polution is evil incarnate. What's next I'm gonna find out you have a car?

          • Re:Seeya! (Score:2, Informative)

            by SquadBoy ( 167263 )
            And of course he is exploiting the guy making the latte. Gawd I hate Nader. http://www.lp.org
          • I know you're mostly poking fun, but living in a city and walking/using public transportation produces much less pollution than living outside of a city and driving everywhere.

            Also, buying that latte as opposed to making it yourself is also more environmentally sound, since they presumably buy things in bulk at the coffee shop. This may be negated somewhat if they serve it to you in a DISPOSABLE cup, but I don't buy coffee from places like that. :)
          • actually, I buy from a coffe house the supports coffe bean farmers. Meaning they buy from and support the farmers. But thanks for your assumptions
        • Uhhmmmm... I was making a (lame) joke employing his username. Sorry it 'meteored' over your head... ;-]

      • hey, i live in the sticks *and* have dsl...
      • Geesh, I'm going to run down to the bar and pick up a twelve pack for this event. Nothing like living in the middle of nowhere *with* broadband and watching the sky fall, all while sip'n a brew on the back of a lifted up 4x4.
    • A well, maybe I should have left the fam @ home if I wanted a good view.
      The weather was great, the skies were clear (for the first time in a week) and the campsite remote enough for a spectacular view of the sky.
      But I was out cold for the good viewing hours both nights we were there.

      As an aside -- I don't think I've ever got 3 "Overrated"s before!

  • "Oh look at the meteor shower... why aren't those meteors getting bigger, and bigger and.."

    (meteor coming towards them)

    "Arrghhhh!!!"

    (Song: Paranoid Android by Radiohead - the 'rain down' section)

    Moral: Life is like a load of Meteors, you never know you're gonna get hit!

  • What is your best wish?
  • Think the media will blow this out of proportion?

    I can just hear it...
    "This just in: Meteor shower on collision course with earth! Could this be the end? We'll find out, right after this message from Charmin."
  • I'd like to know what people should expect if they live in the southern hemisphere... Will it be better, the same, or nothing? (I suppose it should be similar because the earth rotates every day)
    • It'll be similar but the streaks will be going the other direction.

    • Actually, since God created the earth, and he also created Southern Hemisphere dwellers to be inferior to NH'ers, you wont see a damn thing. You are lucky to have stars. So stop whining. Just kidding ;) I really have no idea.

    • You wont see anything unless the contellation Perseus is above your horizon, or at least very close to it. You may have a chance of catching some really cool earth-grazing ones...but if the radiant is below your horizon, your out of luck.

      If cour curious, the radiant(the result of parallax making it seem to come from one point in the sky) is halfway between perseus and cassiopia(thats the 'W' Shaped one).

      I've watched this shower for going on 20 years now, and it never dissapoints.


    • Saw this on the article over at Space.com [space.com]:

      Few Perseids are ever visible from the Southern Hemisphere.

      So I guess you're out of luck, uh? (and me too, by the way)

    • According to the article, southern hemisphere won't see much. But, then again, most of the people who live in the northern hemisphere live in such densely-populated light-polluted ratholes they won't see much anyway ;)
  • This is one shower you can take with your whole family!

    If you've just started dating then you can take your date out for a late night stroll and share your first shower together.

    If you have a friend who lives a long way away then just get on the phone, you can take a shower together even at long range.

    And the best part it is free, as in beer, speech and worship of Artemis.

    Oh the fun you will have.

  • Light pollution campaign (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Aliks ( 530618 )
    Don't expect we'll see much in Western Europe. There just aren't any wide open spaces any more.

    Check out how bad it is on this map at Atlas [bbc.co.uk]

    Maybe we should have a slashdot appeal to turn out all the lights on Monday night.

    Here's wishing dark skies to everyone.
    • Hack the planet :)
    • (* Don't expect we'll see much in Western Europe. There just aren't any wide open spaces any more.
      Check out how bad it is on this map at...*)

      One thing I noticed when in China is that they tend to turn out most of the lights after everybody goes home from work. Only street lights stay on, and even some of those go out. Most ad signs go out and office building lights go out, for example. It might be a nice idea to impose empty building and ad energy usage laws.

      Not only would we be able to see more stars after hours, but be less dependant on energy from angry Arabs who hate our guts.
      • At least at this office, the lights are attached to a motion sensor. If it doesnt detect movement for 20 minutes it shuts off the lights. This is a good thing for the programmers who wouldnt move for hours on end. When the lights go out everyone jumps up and flails their arms. Looks like a whole pack of monkeys all of a sudden woke from a nap.

        The only problem is that the bathroom lights are controlled in this way. If you are, uhm, "occupied" for more than 20 minutes you have to finish your business in complete darkness (or wait in hopes that someone will walk in).
        • (* The only problem is that the bathroom lights are controlled in this way. If you are, uhm, "occupied" for more than 20 minutes you have to finish your business in complete darkness *)

          Or fling infrared-emitting (warm) substances at it.

  • Observing (Score:4, Informative)

    by CommieLib ( 468883 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @06:48PM (#4036263) Homepage
    1. Don't even bother with binocs, much less a scope.

    2. Get outside of the city and lay on the hood of your car.

    3.Bring a flashlight with a red filter to save your night vision.

    4. The Perseids come from a point near the constellation Perseus (go figure). It's actually closer to Cassiopeia, which is much easier to find (it's the big W). Find this [space.com] point for the best viewing.

    • Re:Observing (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )
      It's actually closer to Cassiopeia, which is much easier to find (it's the big W).

      Last December you said Cassiopeia was a "big M". Can't you make up your mind, you damn space geeks!
    • If you have a hot tub in the right place, that's a great place to be when observing!
  • I'm looking forward to seeing the shower again, but I wasn't expecting it this soon. My perception of time appears to have changed in the past few years.
  • Did you ever notice how news like this gets the crop circle nuts and alien zealots crawling out of the woodwork? Has there ever been any study that relates this kind of news with outlandish reports(aliens, I got probed and the lot.)? I would like to see those statistics.
    • You can't posibbly correlate variables like that,since a)not all nuts learns of this,some just claim to have been probed right of the bat. and b)you can't be sure knowledge of similar events is enough to encoruage people to beleive and claim they have been abducted/been probed/seen the loch ness monster...

  • The scar of light pollution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Elm0 ( 599465 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @06:51PM (#4036275)

    I often like to sit out underneath the stars with a close girl-friend of mine, but one thing stands in the way of us seeing the natural beauty of the stars: Light Pollution.

    When you mention this to people they often admit to not having noticed it before; after all, when was the last time you've been somewhere that strange sodium yellow streak wasn't shooting across the sky? If you weren't thinking about it you might take it to be a natural aura.

    I saw a photo a while back (on the printed page, I've searched on Google and couldn't find it) of the night sky a 1000 miles west of Sydney Australia : the sky was still scared by the bright lights.

    I found this picture on Google of light pollution from space: Light pollution over Canada circa 1975 [bell-labs.com] As far as I am aware, this is of Canada, all though the picture isn't very clear I'm afraid it does illustrate a point about the long-reaching effects of light pollution.

    On the greater impact outside of amateur sky watches, I can imagine this greatly hampers the efforts of earth-bound telescopes, and obviously explains why they are in such remote locations.

    Is there anywhere on earth with NO light pollution?

    • Sure there are, I can drive a hour north (I'm in far north-west Queensland, Australia) and the only light pollution is from those damn bright stars. When I was a bit younger we used to go on family camping trips and lay under the stars watching satellites, not something I could do in the city.
    • and that was a pretty dark place - way out in the middle of the Atlantic. *when it wasn't overcast*, the night sky was perfect. Not many groupings of bright lights on the island I was on (Terciera), if you don't count the runway lights of the airport or maybe the bullfighting ring. One could always take a boat out further into the darkness...stay out of the shipping lanes!
      • Funny you should say that: the first thought through my mind when I read that "is there no light pollution anywhere" was "sure, mid-Atlantic"
        I was always amazed by how huge the stars looked on a moonless night when I was on 12-4 watch in the middle of the ocean.
        Always wondered what it was like to live in the Azores -- we went past a few times. Looks like just whales and sheep :-) Is Terciera the island with the big mountain? (Pico?)
        • My mistake on the misspelling of TercEIra. Yes,Pico was the island with the big mountain. The 'earthlights' jpeg floating around sure shows a lot of light out there - I was there in '80-'81; tourism must have picked up. Now, there is a seasonal journey up into the Rocky Mountains West of Fort Collins, Colorado to check on a friend's cabin and hang out, party and look at the night sky. Great view from up here, too. Guessing at about 9,000 ft.
    • I live in New York City. Here you'd be lucky to see the north star on a normal night. Ground lights and buildings obstructing your view do not for good shower viewing make.

      However, a good portion of my friends live in central Jersey. During the last major shower a few of us were lying on the hood of a car in the middle of nowhere, freezing our collective asses of, watching the sky falling. Granted, it wasn't as clear as it could've been, but the contrast between there and NYC was amazing.

      Triv
    • It's two years old, but here [nasa.gov] is a really nice composite of world light polution, and a "brief explanation written by a professional astronomer."
    • The 1975 light polution photo seems to be of Southern Ontario. Ottawa is in the upper right. Windsor/Detroit are in the lower left. Toronto is central, while Niagara Falls is at the bottom.
    • Is there anywhere on earth with NO light pollution?

      Yes, there are, but those places are far and wide apart. Luckily, however, somebody [space.com] is doing something about it. I just wish more countries had legislation like this.
    • Here's [pipeline.com] a list of lots of places without measurable light pollution. ;-)

      I'm a stargazer myself. I'm heading this weekend for a small mountain near my home (Utah), where at least the light pollution is a LITTLE less pervasive.

  • cnn.com (Score:1, Interesting)

    by reshu-wan-kenobi ( 599205 )
    has a really cool colored picture with their story covering this.. thought i was having a flashback..

  • Light Pollution in US (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xeroh ( 140121 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @07:25PM (#4036432)
    Map [noaa.gov]of light pollution in the US.


    Finding a dark sky [darksky.org] near you.


    It looks like I-35 is roughly the dividing line between a much lighter East and generally darker West. Luckily, I live just west of said road, and can head further west to watch from the top of a big bald rock [state.tx.us].

    • It looks like I-35 is roughly the dividing line between a much lighter East and generally darker West. Luckily, I live just west of said road, and can head further west to watch from the top of a big bald rock [state.tx.us].


      I'm going to be heading south 20 mi or so on I-35W til it becomes I-35. It should be dark enough by then. Living in the Twin Cities of MN, it was dark enough to see the bigger meteorites of the last big shower, but this time I'm getting completely out of the city for a better view. One of the nice things about this city is how quickly you can get out of it :-)

  • imprecise language (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dos ( 415274 )
    > as many as 60 or more

    It's bad enough that we have to put up with this kind of vague language in advertisements... but now in technical writing? "As many as" signifies an upper bound. "or more" extends that, which makes that bound meaningless. If some code takes "as much as 5 ms or more" to run, how fast is it? If a new PC came with "as much as 256 MB or more" RAM, would you buy it?

    Argh!
    • Why don't you go out tonight and count them yourself, then? It's only imprecise if you are able to know exactly how many meteors will be visible; and there is no way to know how many WILL BE, you can only give a count after the fact and even those numbers will be different based on your visibility where you are at. I happen to live in an area with considerably less light pollution than others; so hopefully the cloud cover will dissipate and I'll get a good view of at least 20 or so before I decide to go to bed.
  • http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Theater/6882/ Triffids.html
  • Here's the story on being able to hear the Leonids [slashdot.org]?.
    • If your listening you may hear me or other ham radio operators.

      These showers are great for meteor scatter contacts. Traditionally, meteor scatter operators use CW (Morse code) or SSB to propagate signals via the ionized trails left by meteors entering our atmosphere. Some operators use SSB, but to be successful in the voice mode requires long meteor burns, which are less common than the short duration ("pings") of a typical meteor. Thus, high-speed CW is the way to get the most intelligence propagated in the short amount of time that most meteors offer.

      This year I plan on using a new mode called WJST. It is a very high speed CW. The software can be downloaded for free from http://pulsar.princeton.edu/~joe/K1JT/

      Hope to hear you on the rocks!
  • My birthday is the 12th - I really love this. There's just something really special about celebrating your birthday by watching a meteor shower.
  • I've seen more "shooting stars" in the last few days (nights) than I've seen in a long time. I can't wait for the big show...
  • While at the Central Distric (PA) Fireman's Convention, Laura (a member of my fire company) and I saw one REALLY nice one right overhead. Nice and large, bright tail, and a crystal clear (and cold) night made for one of the best meteors I've seen. Best still belongs to the one that went down near Greenville, PA in 1997. Big, nifty green lights (copper on reentry?), and exploded about a 1000 feet above and in front of us.

    I'm not a regular "watcher" of meteor showers, and I was pretty drunk, so this was really nifty to me. Forgive me if I've babbled mindlessly and lowered my geek rating.
  • ...but they'll be hard-pressed to beat last year's Leonids.
    • They'll beat my last year's leonids hands-down. I stayed out until 3-am staring at an overcast sky hoping against hope that I'd get some patch of clarity with a good view for a second or two. Bugged out when it started raining.

      Iowa sucks in the winter. And in the summer. It's not bad in spring and fall though!
  • That it will be the best one yet, but I'm always disappointed. One year though, I saw a really bright meteor streak across the sky, and I heard a loud crackling noise. No kidding.

  • Photography (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ethidium ( 105493 )
    Meteor Photography:

    Materials needed:

    SLR Camera
    50mm f/2 or faster lense, or even better -- a fisheye lense
    400 or faster film -- multiple rolls are good
    Tripod
    Cable Release or self-timer

    Procedure:

    Set up your camera on its tripod outdoors on the night of the 12th or 13th. Point it near the radiant (a few degrees off to one side is good) and wait for the action to start. Then, connect your cable release or set your self-timer and open the lense for a 2-minute or so exposure. Exact times will vary depending on how light-polluted your location is, but that's about good. Then, every two minutes close the shutter and advance the film. You'll get a lot of pictures of star trails and hopefully a few really great shots of streaking meteors. If you see a really great one where your camera is pointing, go ahead and advance right then -- no point in fogging the film further.
    • How about STEREO photography?

      My dad is a major stereography buff, and he and I often go out to the perseids or leonids, get about a 2-mile baseline, and take stereo pictures. It takes some precision timing to get both cameras taking pictures at the same time, but it's worth it. You can see the trajectory of the meteoroids coming straight at you and all around you. It's cool.

  • I stepped into the pseudo-darkness at approximately 12AM last even... nothing. Again, I stepped out at approximately 2AM... I saw -some- light meteor activity (5 give or take in about a 15 minute window). I'm 25 miles north of downtown Dallas, TX. I -thought- I was far enough from the city--actually I think I am BUT my neighborhood "decorative" waste of energy lighting washes out my view.

    -JD

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