Geminid Meteor Shower

zetes writes "Space.com has an article here about a meteor shower called the Geminids, which will occur Saturday night (December 13th). Around 9 PM 'from mid-northern latitutes' will be a great time to look - at about 10 PM the Moon will rise and spoil the show. Enjoy!"

oh no!

[TaraByte]

the sky is falling!

Detecting meteors with the radio

[G4from128k]

It seems that one can detect meteors by radio [k5kj.net]. Meteors create transient ionized trails in the ionosphere that reflect radio waves that would not otherwise bounce of those ionosphere (HF and high-frequency shortwave signals). It even sem that there is software such as this tool for PC-based analysis of radio signals [telepac.pt] that can help one detect meteors and measure the intensity of the shower. Has anyone ever tried this?

Re:Detecting meteors with the radio

[OneOver137]

I'm a ham, but have never done this kind of communicating. I know they use very slow morse code and set up "skeds" on clearer frequencies (or even IM or e-mail) to coordinate the conversation which comes in bits and pieces due to the temporal nature of the ionization. Any other hams care to comment?

Telescope viewing?

[Josh Booth]

I just found a nice tripod for my old telescope. Would it be worth it to use it to look at the meteor shower? How much could I see?

Re:Telescope viewing?

[OneOver137]

viewing meteors through a telescope is not recommended. the field of view is very small and a meteor shower is a whole-sky event. To watch a shower, find a comfortable place to lay or sit, and stare in the general direction of the radiant (in this case, the constellation Gemini). For this shower, the radiant is close an obvious yellow "star" called Saturn. Save your scope for stars,planets, or deep sky objects.

Re:Telescope viewing?

[spin2cool]

Binoculars or other low-power, large-field devices can give a really spectacular view, though. You'll see less meteors this way, but will gain an appreciably better view of the ones you do spot.

9pm?

[nocomment]

What time zone? ET?

Re:9pm?

[mph]

What time zone? ET?

Uh, "local time" would be my guess. The moon rises at about the same local time whether you're in the ET or PT time zone. Likewise, if you're on the west coast, you'll be looking at about the same part of the sky at 9:00 PT as east coasters were seeing at 9:00 ET.

Re:9pm?

[Tango42]

They don't. The radiant rises at the same time, regardless of timezone (that's the point of timezones, to make things rise at the same time everywhere - usually the Sun), so the meteor shower starts at the same time, regardless of timezone. (It should start shortly before the radiant rises) There's a slight chance the sky might clear before 9 here (UK), but i'm not hopeful.

Great...

[Bob Vila's Hammer]

Can't wait to see the clouds.

Re:Great...

[borgboy]

You're in Ohio too?!

Last Saturday

[core plexus]

At about 6:15pm, I looked out the window at what I thought was a plane. It's quite dark in this part of Alaska at that time. It attracted my attention because it was bright, and out of the usual flight paths for my area. Suddenly it broke into a number of fragments and got even brighter. I don't know what it was. It was heading from roughly south to north. I plan to plot the vector from my viewpoint and check it out when the snow melts a little.

-cp-

CLEVER MOOSE RAIDING TRASH IN ANCHORAGE [alaska-freegold.com]

Geminid Meteor Shower Party - Aberdeen, Scotland

[Trull]

My local ( www.aberdeenastro.btinternet.co.uk ) astro soc have arranged a meteor shower observing party tonight (Sat 13th).

Anyone else going to one?

Hopefully the weather will be kind.

Clear skies

Torc

Gee, thanks

[jfengel]

There is no surer predictor of bad weather in my home town than a cosmic event. With the exception of Halley's comet (not even this place could sustain cloud cover that long) and the occasional lunar eclipse, I've never managed to catch any event (including the Leonids and Perseids *every* *single* *year*).

We had lovely clear skies until I read this posting.

Re:Gee, thanks

[Tango42]

Is there a Murphy's Law of Astronomy that says something along those lines? I even managed to miss most of the last lunar eclipse because of cloud. I saw it at about 20% covered, and then it disappeared. Problem is, when it is mostly covered, it isn't bright enough to penetrate the clouds.