[Vision2020] Strong Meteor Shower Peaks Monday Night (fwd)

Tue Dec 14 02:15:19 PST 2004

Yea I even went and bought a new lens for this event (and future
auroras)... Not one star to be seen!! But all was not lost, I got bored
and took a 360 panorama of friendship square at 1:00 AM instead...  

That's right, just keep on raining, 
            Ms Jasper Nance

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Jasper Nance 
http://nebar.gotdns.com
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On Mon, 2004-12-13 at 20:21 -0800, Debbie Gray wrote:
> Strong Meteor Shower Peaks Monday Night
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/space/strongmeteorshowerpeaksmondaynight
> 
> Joe Rao
> SPACE.com Night Sky Columnist
> SPACE.com
> 
> If you were disappointed with the meager showing put on by this year's Leonid meteor
> shower, don't fret. What could be the best meteor display of the year is scheduled to
> reach its peak on Monday night, Dec. 13.
> 
> Skywatchers with dark skies away from city lights could see one or two meteors every
> minute during the Geminid meteor shower. The greatest activity is expected to be visible
> from North America, Europe and Africa.
> 
> The Geminids get their name from the constellation of Gemini, the Twins. On the night of
> this shower's maximum, the meteors will appear to emanate from a spot in the sky near the
> bright star Castor in Gemini. [Sky Map ]
> 
> Typically strong
> 
> The Geminid meteors are usually the most satisfying of all the annual showers, even
> surpassing the famous Perseids of August. Studies of past displays show that this shower
> has a reputation for being rich both in slow, bright, graceful meteors and fireballs as
> well as faint meteors, with relatively fewer objects of medium brightness.
> 
> Geminids typically encounter Earth at 22 miles per second (35 kilometers per second),
> roughly half the speed of a Leonid meteor. Many Geminids are yellowish in hue. Some even
> appear to form jagged or divided paths.
> 
> The Earth moves quickly through this meteor stream. Rates increase steadily for two or
> three days before maximum. So over the weekend, viewers between midnight and dawn might
> see a shooting star every few minutes. The number of meteors drops off sharply after the
> peak. Renegade forerunners and late stragglers might be seen for a week or more before
> and after maximum.
> 
> Ideal conditions
> 
> The Geminids perform excellently in any year, but British meteor astronomer Alastair
> McBeath has expects a "superb year" in 2004. Last year's display was seriously
> compromised by bright moonlight, when a bright gibbous Moon came up over the horizon
> during the late evening hours and washed-out many of the fainter Geminid streaks.
> 
> But this year, the Moon will be at New phase Dec. 11. On the peak night, the Moon will be
> a skinny crescent, low in the west-southwest at dusk and setting before 6 p.m. That means
> the sky will be dark and moonless for the balance of the night, making for perfect
> viewing conditions.
> 
> According to McBeath, the Geminids are predicted to reach peak activity on Monday at
> 22:20 GMT, which is 5:20 p.m. EST. Locations from Europe and North Africa east to central
> Russian and Chinese longitudes are in the best position to catch the very crest of the
> shower, when the rates conceivably could exceed 120 per hour, or two every minute.
> [Predictions for Select Cities]
> 
> Maximum rates persist at only marginally reduced levels for some 6 to 10 hours, McBeath
> says, so other places, such as North America, should enjoy some fine Geminid activity as
> well.
> 
> When to watch
> 
> Indeed, under normal conditions on the night of maximum activity, with ideal dark-sky
> conditions, at least 60 to 120 Geminid meteors can be expected to burst across the sky
> every hour on the average. Light pollution greatly cuts the numbers, so city and suburban
> dwellers will see far fewer.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Earthgrazers 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.
> 
> 
> Jimmy Westlake imaged this Geminid in 1985. Click to enlarge it. More about the image
> below.
> 
> 
> 
> The Geminids begin to appear noticeably more numerous in the hours after 10 p.m. local
> time Monday, because the shower's radiant is already fairly high in the eastern sky by
> then. The best views, however, come around 2 a.m. Tuesday, 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.
> 
> How to prepare
> 
> This time of year, meteor watching can be a long, cold business. The late Henry Neely,
> 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 15 minutes or more to adapt to the darkness before getting serious about
> meteor watching. And have something comfortable to sit on; a lounge chair will allow you
> to stare up for long periods without straining your neck.
> 
> Geminids stand apart from the other meteor showers in that they seem to have been spawned
> not by a comet, but by 3200 Phaeton, an Earth-crossing asteroid. Then again, the Geminids
> may be comet debris after all, for some astronomers consider Phaeton to really be the
> dead nucleus of a burned-out comet that somehow got trapped into an unusually tight
> orbit.
> 
>  *  How Meteor Showers Work
>  *  Meteor Watching Tips
>  *  The Power of a Shooting Star
> 
> Meteor showers are notoriously difficult to predict, but the Geminids are relatively
> reliable. In addition to the Monday night peak, Sunday night could provide a good show.
> This chart shows expected rates of meteors every 15 minutes for select locations.
> However, these rates won't actually be visible from cities, due to urban lighting. CLICK
> TO ENLARGE
> 
> ________________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He
> writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an
> on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.
> 
> Picture
> 
> >From Jimmy Westlake:
> 
> "Back in 1985, I was teaching and directing the Rollins Planetarium at Young Harris
> College at the base of Georgia's highest mountain peak, Brasstown Bald (Yes, Georgia has
> mountains!).
> 
> "The 4784-foot mountain often served as my private observation spot at night, as it did
> on the night of December 13-14, 1985 during the Geminid meteor shower. I aimed my
> tripod-mounted Nikon FE-2 camera toward the celestial pole and stopped down the lens to
> f5.6 for a 60-minute exposure. Several meteors flashed by during the hour, but none were
> bright enough to record at f5.6.Two airplanes, headed for parts unknown, left their
> silent trails across the film. The silhouette of the tower housing the Information
> Visitors Center and observation deck is visible atop the peak, 200 feet above me.
> 
> "After the hour-long exposure, I placed my gloved hand over the 50 mm lens, carefully
> opened the aperture ring to f1.8, and waited for 5 minutes. I then removed my hand from
> in front of the lens for a final 30 second exposure to punctuate each star trail with a
> bright dot. As fate would have it, during that 30-second interval, the brightest Geminid
> fireball of the night shot right across the center of the image! My main concern was not
> bumping the tripod as I jumped up and down in excitement!
> 
> "The result, as you can see, is a striking portrait of a Geminid meteor."
> 
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