Perseid Meteor Shower

“ASA Science News for July 19, 2002

This weekend Earth will enter the outskirts of a cloud of comet debris.
It marks the beginning of the annual Perseid meteor shower, which
peaks
on August 12th and 13th. The warmth of northern summer makes the
Perseids
one of the year's most inviting sky shows.




FULL STORY”

“We will be on Isle Royale for the peak nights (Aug 12 & 13)!!! Should have some great dark skies for the viewing....now, just have to hope for CLEAR dark skies!!”

“And I said "Look here brother
Who you jiving with that cosmik debris?

- FZ”

“Nice Try! LOL

ACtually, The-Navigueser beat both of us to it back on the 8th.”

“Back to the top!”

“HPM and I saw a huge green streak meteorite a few nights ago. It was highly visible even with all of the street lights. I'd be surprised if it didn't hit somewhere in Ga.”

“It missed me by that much.”

“86, is that you?”

“Heimie, is that you? My phone has been giving me blisters, lately.”

“Super. APOD ought to be Required Reading, <G>

I saw a few last night, but the best by far was a sporadic from the south, possibly out of Sagitarius... a Big Slow Wobbly one.

It looks like the clouds Just Might cooperate one or two more nights around here (knock on wood).

Some Goodies...

The sky this week.

Perseid stuff at SpaceWeather.com


Those other Perseid threads...

Baume's thread

Naviguesser's thread

Pathman's thread (haha)”

“Two T's in Sagittarius!

<grrrrrr>


And That Blasted Apostrophe!”

“Hey Nowslimmer, that site is a service of Michigan Tech University! Go Huskies!

I'm taking an astronomy class this fall. I guess it would be good to get a jump start, and see the meteor shower this week. That's awful early for me to be up, though.....2AM?”

“Maybe work will give me a break to see the meteor shower seeing as I had to come in today a 3am.

Not likely.”

“I believe credit goes to Tilt for putting me on to that site. I now use it as my home page. Each time I see an interesting picture, I set it as wallpaper.

Most days one could spend hours and more reading and following links from that site. But I am still left with unanswered questions:

Where is the center of the universe? (If it is expanding, from where is it expanding?)

Which way is up? Or in other words, what is the orientation set-up should one travel out into space?

Anyone have some links for answers to these questions? Thanks.”

“Yep! That's where all of my 'wallpaper' comes from.

More Questions!

(I think I'm getting a brain cramp)”

“I saw 3 'shooting stars' within 15 seconds this morning. 5 more in the next 3 minutes. Cool!!”

“I camped out last night but before getting to the campsite I sat (around 9pm) and looked at the sky (got out late and hiked in dark for a most of the time). I remembered the perseids were near the big "W" in the sky, and I found it and looked, but didn't see a thing. If I'd've known that 4am would have some good ones, I would've gotten up and looked. Oh Well!”

“wow tilt...thank you for sharing that site ...definitely gunna bookmark it....
.......the universe....sure kicks all forms of A$$ how it operates...........
.you can count on it to reveal a lot of truth”

“Hey, we still have a few nights to go for this go-around, <G>

And be ready for the Leonids to come around again in mid-November. The Moon is going to try to mess things up, but if there's another 'storm'...”

“I slept out under the stars last night. Kept watch for maybe an hour, like 11-midnight or so. Saw 7, only 2 were semi-good. Woke up maybe 3-ish and saw another. Was not impressed (at least so far) compared to what I'd seen in past years. Yes, I was by good, dark skies.”

“Well, I shouldn't sound soooo jaded (to quote Aerosmith! lol) I love to see the meteors/shooting stars and think whatever's beyond in the galaxy is an amazing thing. But, just didn't see as many or as great a magnitude as last year.... yet. ;-)”

“Watched for a while last night while up on the mountain. It was rather early. Only saw one, but it was on of the best meteors I have ever seen. Long, bright, and seemed to linger. Will try again tonight, but from home and under the LA sky.”

“so, if I look out tonight around midnight I might get a good show?”

“Pretty good tonight... better Monday night.”

“I was laying in my tent with my head out the door, perfect skies for viewing meteors. I saw two good ones at 9:10pm, another one at 9:20, then I fell asleep . . . . Probably the best night sleep I've had in awhile.”

“I kept going outside all night but the sky was so bright. I didn't see any meteors, but I didn't stay out each time for a long time.”

“dogs barked at something around 3am and instead of ignoring it and going back to sleep as usual, I remembered the showering, so I woke myself up and went outside on the deck.....saw two about 10 minutes apart.....they were fast and medium bright, then i walked around to the other side and went out into the field to stretch out on a blanket....saw one....low and just above the treetops.....it was longer and brighter....then i drifted back to sleep while waiting on the next one and woke there this morning.....(tonite i will use some insect deterrant)”

“Better watch out for those Egyptian Skeeters.



This Just In...

The Nippon Meteor Society (NMS)



  ---------------------------------------

  Perseids 2002  in Japan   -3rd announcement-

          (Visual Observation)

  ---------------------------------------



n   : the number of data

PER : all meteors (Perseids)

Time:Total time (min.)

ZHR : r=2.0$B!$(Bgamma=1.0

Err. = ZHR * (1/SQRT(PER))



excluding:observations under unfavorable condition

          (Lm<4.5mag, Cl>0.4, RP-h<15deg, Time<30min.)



                      <daily results>



 DATE  UT        n   PER   Time    HR      ZHR   Err.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Jul 20d 18:00   4     6   240    1.5     2.9    1.2

Jul 21d 18:00   3     2   180    0.7     2.1    1.5

Jul 22d 18:00   0     -     -     -       -      -

Jul 23d 18:00   1     1   120    1.0     7.8    7.8

Jul 24d 18:00   1     2    60    2.0    12.7    9.0



Jul 25d 18:00   1     0    60    0.0     0.0     -

Jul 26d 18:00   4    15   240    3.8    10.2    2.6

Jul 27d 18:00   4    17   240    4.3    15.7    3.8

Jul 28d 18:00   0     -     -     -       -      -

Jul 29d 18:00   0     -     -     -       -      -



Jul 30d 18:00   5     5   255    1.3    11.1    5.0

Jul 31d 18:00   2     7   120    3.5    16.5    6.2



Aug 01d 18:00   1     3    60    3.0    13.8    8.0

Aug 02d 18:00   1     4    60    4.0    22.8   11.4

Aug 03d 18:00   1    12    60   12.0    36.2   10.5

Aug 04d 18:00   0     -     -     -       -      -



Aug 05d 18:00   3    23   183    7.6    20.7    4.3

Aug 06d 18:00   6    52   315    9.9    22.0    3.1

Aug 07d 18:00   7    86   410   12.7    22.8    2.5

Aug 08d 18:00  15   118   730   10.0    30.8    2.8

Aug 09d 18:00   6    49   320   10.2    43.6    6.2



Aug 10d 18:00  28   291  1552   12.4    43.7    2.6

Aug 11d 18:00   6    52   240   15.3    66.9    9.3





Total observation time : 5,545min. (=92.42h)

Total Perseids meteors :   745meteors





Observers: 

 Shinobu AMIKURA, Mitsunori IWAMOTO, Shigeo UCHIYAMA,

 Hiroshi OGAWA,Kazuhiro OSADA, Hiroyuki KATO, Toru SAGAYAMA

 Misaki KANETAKA, Atsuyoshi KAWAURA, Mikiya SATO,

 Takashi SEKIGUCHI, Takashi HIGUCHI, Ken-ichi FUSHIMI,

 Hidekatsu MIZOGUCHI, Minoru MURAKI, Keiko MORINAGA,

 Katsuhiro YOSHIZAKI, Masaaki YOSHIMURA





(Although the observing condition was not good, I receive reports.

 Observers are: Minoru SHIMIZU, Mitsuhiro FUJITA, Yoshiaki

 FUJIYOSHI, Kayo MIYAO, Yasuo YABU, Takuya MARUYAMA)





with best wishes

Hiroshi Ogawa



----------------------------------

Hiroshi Ogawa (University of Tsukuba, JAPAN)

”

“Saw one Friday night with sparkels in the tail that hung around a few seconds.
Saturday saw one with a red head and an orange tail.
It was pertty cool.”

“I saw two that were so big they were visible from my car. They were right in front of me as I was driving North. Two different times
between the hours of 12:30am and 1:30am. It is clear skies around here we are soooo lucky! Tuesday night me and a couple of friends are going to have our sort of annual star party up at the local 4K peak. Last year in Nov. I saw the most, I am sure it was over 30 with one of them lighting up the whole landscape for about 2 seconds. Spectacular!”

“The Leonids were soooo incredible last November. I'm totally spoiled now!”

“yup, that's what I was saying. *pout*”

“Saw a few good 'uns this AM. Nothing spectacular, tho'...”

“yeah, last night I was out of town at a friend's farm and the clear sky was full of bright stars after midnight we saw the most, then I fell to sleep and woke up many times during the night but did not see any more - tonight I will see more I hope, it should be good, not a cloud in the sky and we are having a record high temp of 104F
we virtually never get this hot weather in cool western Oregon

glad I am going up to higher elevations to escape the heat down here in the valley”

“It has been cloudy and rainy here on the eastcentral coast of Florida. Have not been able to even view a star.”

“Last night was full clouds here too, but every little bit I`d trot outside for a look see. Any reason to get out`s a good`un:)”

“Astro Pic o' the Day, 8-15-02

”

“Tilt, Where was the photo taken? wow!”

“Look up! You'll see the link. Makes a good homepage. Tilt and I both keep changing wallpaper with the interesting pictures.

Makes it more interesting when you turn on your browser and see a different picture each day. And if you following the links in the daily articles, you'll find lots of information and many additional interesting photographs. Suggest that you click on "Calender" at the bottom of the page for years of the daily pictures.”

“Gosh, nowslimmer is on my ass now!!! LOL!! Hello to you in Iowa!! Got the daughter to her location yet? Is she in a dorm or what? OH, my geocache was rescued by the "axe man." I never went with. But he sent an e-mail. LOL! ;-)”

“Still packing, procrastinating, but departure is getting close.”

“That's a link to some nice pics of the Northern Lights in the Upper Penninsula a couple weeks back.”

“Nowslimmer is WHERE, Lizs?

LOLOLOL

You're making new friends wherever you go, even if it is only email, (ba-dum-bum).



The APOD folks have recycled some of the images a few times, but when you think how they've put up a "new" one every day since the Summer of 1995... that's quite an accomplishment.

Plug in 'planetary' into the search function sometime and check out those planetary nebulae... positively mind-blowing (and completely legal).


Looks like 'Slimmer is going to have some catching up to do when he returns from his 'circumnavigation'.”

“a-HA!

And what looks to be one-o'-them 18-foot Hobie Cats!”

“Adakhiker says that he will help. We'll split things 50-50. Or will it just double the procrastination.”

“Thanks, Smiley girl. Enjoyed those and saved the site to explore the additional links at another time.”