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Forum:	Free Space
Topic:	2016 Perseid meteor shower, August 11-12

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<table border=0 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="600"><TR><td bgcolor="#000000"><TABLE BORDER=0 cellpadding=4 border=0 cellspacing=1 WIDTH="100%"><TR bgcolor="#660000"><TD COLSPAN=2><CENTER><FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#ffffff" FACE="arial, helvetica">T O P I C     R E V I E W</font></CENTER></TD></TR><TR bgcolor="#494949"><TD valign=top><FONT SIZE="2" FACE="arial, helvetica">Robert Pearlman</FONT></TD><TD><FONT SIZE="2" FACE="arial, helvetica">The annual Perseid meteor shower is anticipated to be one of the best potential meteor viewing opportunities this year. <BLOCKQUOTE><I>"Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of Aug. 11-12," said Bill Cooke with NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama. "Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour."<P>Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years. Each swing through the inner solar system can leave trillions of small particles in its wake. When Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle’s debris, specks of comet-stuff hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. These meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus.</I></BLOCKQUOTE> This video is from the Meteor investigation on the International Space Station, which is making the first space-based observations of the chemical composition of meteors entering Earth's atmosphere. <P><center><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FISS%2Fvideos%2F1262168717149390%2F&width=400&show_text=false&height=225&appId" width="400" height="225" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true">

MarylandSpace

If we are on the East Coast, which area of the sky should we gazing at? N, S, E, W? And I assume the best time is after midnight when the Moon has set.

Robert Pearlman

From NASA:

The best way to see the Perseids is to go outside between midnight and dawn on the morning of Aug. 12. Allow about 45 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Lie on your back and look straight up.
For stargazers experiencing cloudy or light-polluted skies, a live broadcast of the Perseid meteor shower will be available via Ustream overnight on Aug. 11-12 and Aug. 12-13, beginning at 10 p.m. EDT.

Blackarrow

quote:
Originally posted by MarylandSpace:
If we are on the East Coast, which area of the sky should we gazing at?

If you are looking through thick horizon-to-horizon cloud (as I was) direction doesn't matter. If I had stood on my head I might have seen stars, but meteors? Zilch. As usual.

nasamad

I went out at 01:00 this morning and lay in my deck chair, there were a few good bright meteors with one brilliant fireball at 01:07 which cast a shadow and left a good trail which looked like smoke dispersing. Unfortunately I was still setting my camera up at the time so I missed the shot.

It clouded over here (Essex, UK) at around 02:15 so I checked the rain forecast and went back to bed leaving my camera snapping away. I'm yet to see If I've caught anything as I haven't checked the card.

Glint

Took the dog out last evening around 22:30 EDT and knowing it was Perseid night looked northeastward and was rewarded after just a couple of minutes by a nice bright slow-moving orange meteor.

Probably spent a total of three minutes observing, but it was worth it.

Blackarrow

Slightly better news from 20 minutes observing (quite some time) after midnight on a windy but almost cloudless Saturday morning. Stars: thousands. Satellites: 1. Stiff neck: 1. Meteors: 1 (but it was a good one, probably magnitude -3 with a slowly dispersing trail). But I still think that the Perseids are massively over-hyped and usually disappoint.

cspg

There are more satellites than meteors, that's for sure. I only saw a couple of meteors on Friday night around 11pm. I guess that we could see more once the Moon has set.

moorouge

Geoffrey - would have thought that disappointment was in inverse proportion to the amount of poteen consumed whilst waiting for a meteor.

Blackarrow

Steady on, Mr P - if you're accusing me of imbibing illegal "moonshine" I'll have to set my lawyer on you - if I could find a reliable one.

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