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Post by Condor on Dec 12, 2007 21:11:51 GMT -5
Thursday night there will be really nice meteor shower. Up to 120 per hour if we're lucky. I plan on going away from the city lights to enjoy them. To quote John Denver..."I've seen it raining fire in the sky." This is exactly what he was singing about.
Condor
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Post by ladyt on Dec 12, 2007 21:30:11 GMT -5
Can the East coast see it and at what time? T
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Post by midnightrocksi3 on Dec 12, 2007 21:56:13 GMT -5
Oh no kidding??? Oooo I just love meteor showers.. nothing like pure magic in the sky!!
*smiles* Roxy
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Post by sandsman1 on Dec 12, 2007 22:30:26 GMT -5
ill be watchin i love this stuff any special time
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Post by Lady B on Dec 12, 2007 23:07:44 GMT -5
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Post by puppie96 on Dec 13, 2007 0:31:24 GMT -5
Looks like Geminids are the standout this year. From what I've read, they are dependable on an annual basis, but less often seen because of the cold in December. Good luck with the weather! We drove about 150 miles, nearly to Indiana, to see the Leonid storm in 2001, and of course drove back into the city well after daylight. It was so worth it.
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Post by sandsman1 on Dec 13, 2007 18:50:20 GMT -5
its nice where im at cause your lucky to see street lights haha so depending where i sit i can get rid of all the glare right outside my rv
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Post by sandsman1 on Dec 13, 2007 18:55:11 GMT -5
What to do
Generally speaking, depending on your location, Gemini begins to come up above the east-northeast horizon right around the time evening twilight is coming to an end. So you might catch sight of a few early Geminids as soon as the sky gets dark.
There is a fair chance of perhaps catching sight of some "Earth-grazing" meteors.
Earth grazers are long, bright shooting stars that streak overhead from a point near to even just below the horizon. Such meteors are so distinctive because they follow long paths nearly parallel to our atmosphere.
The Geminids begin to appear noticeably more numerous in the hours after 10 p.m. local time, because the shower's radiant is already fairly high in the eastern sky by then. The best views, however, come around 2 a.m., when their radiant point will be passing very nearly overhead.
The higher a shower's radiant, the more meteors it produces all over the sky.
But keep this in mind: At this time of year, meteor watching can be a long, cold business. You wait and you wait for meteors to appear.
When they don't appear right away, and if you're cold and uncomfortable, you're not going to be looking for meteors for very long!
The late Henry Neely (1878-1963), who for many years served as a lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium, once had this to say about watching for the Geminids: "Take the advice of a man whose teeth have chattered on many a winter's night — wrap up much more warmly than you think is necessary!"
Hot cocoa or coffee can take the edge off the chill, as well as provide a slight stimulus. It's even better if you can observe with friends. That way, you can keep each other awake, as well as cover more sky. Give your eyes time to dark-adapt before starting.
Bundle up and good luck!
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Post by snowdog on Dec 14, 2007 1:08:10 GMT -5
not sure I understood all this after eating all that cake ( from the other post) --- but will try to explain --------- ---------- I thought I would go out and have a "meteor shower" -- couldn't be that different than a "hot shower" or a "cold one" could it ? --- so I took off my clothes and hung them on the hook by the bathroom door and slipped outside ( hey, the nudist do it ) -- the cold air wasn't as bad as I thought it would be , but then I had joined the "polar bear club" a few years ago ----- after getting away from the tree line I found a nice open spot to watch from -- BUT, it took an awful lot of "will power" to lay down on the ground so I could look up easier ! --- we still have about 1/2 -1" of ice over everything -- at first my body heat started to melt the ice so I could use the soap and really got lathered up -- but then , my body started to cool down and the water started to freeze up again -- about this time I did see 4-5 light streaks go across the sky ;D --- I decided I'd showered long enough so thought I would go back inside but found I was froze down --- I started to howl !!!!!!!! and that is when "the snowodg" came over and said --" see , you always wonder why I howl !" -- now you know !! -- he did lend me enough body heat to un-freeze myself , so I dried off and came back in ---- I think I'll wait until summer before trying that again ! ;D ;D---- or else skip the cake before going out !--------- did anyone else see them ??
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Post by midnightrocksi3 on Dec 14, 2007 1:39:25 GMT -5
SNOWDOG! i LOVED THAT STORY! !!!!!! seriously reminded me of some of the coolest stories I've heard growing up.. (well not about the nudist part, or the skinny dippin, or any of that other stuff) But about that snowdog howling LOL.. either way.. I'm THERE!!!
*wishing on stars* Roxy
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Post by puppie96 on Dec 14, 2007 6:16:43 GMT -5
Wow, you guys are really tripping. It must be something in that space dust.
We went. We saw. For a week we have had nothing but totally rotten, rainy, icy, drizzly weather, and then, miraculously, it started to clear at sunset and by later it was a crystal clear cold winter night. We layered up and took our sleeping bags out to Joe's brother's house in the country -- or exurbs -- where there was much less light and a reasonable view of the sky -- overhead was perfect then tree/house obstructions here and there. We got there around one and stayed till about 3. We had enough clothing that with the sleeping bags we were fine for warmth, though it would have been better with the airmatresses too. It was SO worth it. We didn't manage any kind of accurate count -- we were spending a lot of time comparing what we saw, not always sure it was the same thing and not always sure if our eyes were playing tricks, so this was actually very helpful and it turns out our eyes were not playing tricks, we were seeing the same stuff. We definitely saw over 50 meteors, possibly a lot more. After we got home I stood outside on our deck for a while, and even with the higher light I saw 14 more! Right after we got to the country, I saw a little one the instant I looked up. A short time later, we both saw one of the best of the night, going right down the side of Orion. Then it went dry for a long stretch and then picked up and continued sporadically but reliably. This one is third on my lifetime list after Leonids 2001 and 2002, in that order.
Here's my observations. There were some things that struck us about it:
1. We saw the most meteors high in the sky. The most common originated almost on top of the radiant, while in past showers the advice was always to not look directly at the radiant but all over, just using the radiant for trajectory. We did see others further out towards the horizon, but fewer. The direction of travel was always clearly identifyable, back to the radiant.
2. There was a lot of variation in appearance. Some were very bright and one even left a smoke trail. Some appeared very slow and others really fast. Others were much less bright but still visible over a long trail. 3. They tended to come in clusters of 2 or 3. By that I mean not immediately, but spread over the next 3 or 4 minutes, enough so that if you saw one faint one you'd look harder because one would probably follow in a minute. I was even noticing that frequently the trajectory of the second would be exactly the opposite and started looking in the other direction -- and it was right a couple times! I have no clue about whether this was just coincidence, or what.
4. There were a lot of cool visuals, like early there were a number streaking through or from Orion, while later the activity seemed to shoot out of Mars a lot, or Mars would be targeted, and sometimes right out of the 2 stars of Gemini -- once, one right after the other!
Did anybody else see them? I can't wait to hear some reports!!
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Post by joe on Dec 14, 2007 9:48:00 GMT -5
Nothin' here. Solid clouds covered the sky all night.
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stefan
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2005
Posts: 14,113
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Post by stefan on Dec 14, 2007 10:15:55 GMT -5
Caught a few on Wed. Night- I took the scope out to see M42- Too Bad the clouds were so heavy here last night.
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Post by puppie96 on Dec 14, 2007 11:18:06 GMT -5
Sorry about your weather...we were certainly very lucky.
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Post by LCARS on Dec 15, 2007 1:03:46 GMT -5
Cloudy & had to work early anyways so no meteors for me.
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Post by Condor on Dec 15, 2007 1:20:32 GMT -5
I only saw one. Didn't go out of the city, and it was somewhat cloudy.
Condor
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Post by puppie96 on Dec 15, 2007 13:10:01 GMT -5
I'm so glad I remembered. Now it's back to snowy and overcast. The sky cleared for just enough hours to see meteors. It was fate.
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