Dark Nights for This Year's Perseids - Meteor Shower

[okarol]

Dark Nights for This Year's Perseids
Mark your calendar for Sunday night, August 12-13.

This year the new moon of August comes on Sunday, the 12th, perfectly timed to bring dark, moonless nights around the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. Moreover, Earth should pass through the shower's richest part around 1AM ET on August 13th -- so North Americans and western Europeans should have the best seats in the house.

The Perseids are bits of space debris that were shed by Comet Swift-Tuttle in past centuries and remain traveling more or less along the comet's 130-year orbit around the sun. The particles range in size from sand grains to pebbles, and they have the consistency of dry dirt. As it orbits the sun, Earth passes through this thin "river of rubble" every year in mid-August. Each meteoroid rips into our upper atmosphere at 37 miles per second, creating an incandescent trail of shocked, ionized air. This hot trail, not the tiny meteoroid itself, is what you see.

The Perseids are one of the two strongest, most dependable annual meteor showers (the Geminids of December are the other; here's a list of all the best ones). The grand Perseid displays of the 1990s seem to be well and truly over, so this year under a dark sky you might see "only" 60 to 90 Perseids per hour between midnight and dawn. Light pollution cuts down the numbers, but the most spectacular streakers always shine through.


More info, go to --> http://reference.aol.com/space/skyandtelescope/_a/dark-nights-for-this-years-perseids/20070802171109990001?ncid=AOLRNL00140000000006

[kitkatz]

I think we are heading up to the high desert tonight up out of the city lights by nine to see the show in the sky.  We will drop the top on the convertible and watch the skies.  Damned romantics that we are!

[livecam]

I'll be going out to watch too.  I picked up a few camera tools today and plan to try photographing Endeavor/ISS on the 9:01 PM pass and the Perseids meteor shower tonight.

My viewing location just over a mile from the house has worked before so it should be fine tonight.

Well two hours later as it turns out so called astro photography isn't easy.  Focusing alone is a challenge when the star field is so dark. 

I can also see that if this is going to be a regular thing I would need much faster glass than I'm using now. 

Here is a first attempt at the night sky...with no meteors seen.

In the second shot what looks like meteors are actually passing aircraft.  The little dots are when the beacons flashed.


EDITED: Resized Pictures - Sluff/ Admin

[kitkatz]

We went up and parked along Highway 395 and dropped the convertible's top and sat and watched the meteor showers. Some of them were large, but most were small sparkles.  It was romantic. We talked about things as we laid there and looked at the stars and held hands.

[charee]

thats so romantic kit

[tamara]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw