Meteor showers this week?
 

Anyone heard anything?


KT

http://www.theskyscrapers.org/meteors/index.php/year/2009

Delta Aquarids
July 28-29

Frequency: 16-30 per hour
37.6% illumination
At peak time about 20 bright, yellow meteors can be observed per hour. Because these meteors nearly broadside the Earth, their speed is a moderate 25.5 miles per second.
Capricornids
July 29-30

Frequency: 0-15 per hour
58.7% illumination
The Capricornids are characterized by their often yellow coloration and their frequent brightness. They are also slow interplanetary interlopers, hitting our atmosphere at around 15 miles per second. Though you can expect only 15 meteors per hour at best under dark sky conditions, the Capricornids are noted for producing brilliant fireballs.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/23/SPKU18STNU.DTL

I found the article.

We'll be outside between 2:00-3:00am.


KT

The first group, the Delta Aquarids, should originate from the south and fan out to the east, north and west.

I couldn't find much concrete info about the second group.

In 2 weeks the Perseids peak. Those are supposed to be pretty spectacular.


August 12-13

Frequency: 45+ per hour
60% illumination
This shower produces about 60 meteors per hour, and its performance is farily consistant from year to year.

It's clouding up. :mad:


KT

I saw a couple of very bright ones last night (I was out for an evening bike ride). Pretty amazing, actually - they looked to be traveling a lot slower/lazier than I've seen other "shooting stars" in the past and were remarkably visible - one was bright enough to draw my attention to it (I wasn't even looking in that direction when it happened - it was bright enough in my peripheral vision to draw my gaze to it).

Celestial phenomena like these are awesome to observe.

We'll try again tomorrow night.



KT

Maybe I'll take a drive tomorrow night and try too..

I'd have to drive for an hour + to get away from all the city lights to get a good view of these.
One of the very few things i miss about oklahoma are the clear skies.

Years ago, I had a really dumb g/f. It was late summer, and I was setting the alarm clock as we were going to bed.
She asked "What are you doing?" to which I replied "Setting the alarm so I can get up and watch the meteor shower" Her solution "Why don't you just tape it?"

Last night we had this...

ISS is going to be bright and visible again Tomorrow night for some.

To find out when and where the shuttle or ISS will be, go here.
http://www.heavens-above.com/

make sure you set your location and timezone correctly from one of the links on the page to get the correct info.

Here's the info for Houston

ISS - Visible Passes

Search period start: 00:00 Wednesday, 29 July, 2009
Search period end: 00:00 Saturday, 8 August, 2009
Observer's location: Friendswood, TX, US, 29.5380°N, 95.1700°W
Local time zone: Central Daylight Time (UTC - 5:00)
Orbit: 343 x 351 km, 51.6° (Epoch Jul 29)

Click on the date to get a star chart and other pass details.

Date Mag Starts Max. altitude Ends
Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az. Time Alt. Az.
29 Jul -0.8 21:39:55 10 W 21:41:47 16 SW 21:42:49 13 SSW
30 Jul -3.2 20:28:27 10 NW 20:31:22 74 SW 20:34:16 10 SE
31 Jul -0.5 20:53:59 10 W 20:55:44 15 SW 20:57:27 10 SSW

Trek, use this....
http://cleardarksky.com/csk/

Thanks for that link.
http://cleardarksky.com/c/NapaCAkey.html?1
( Napa specific )


KT

I usually can't even see more than a few stars in the sky here, too much light from civilization.

Looks to be clear tonight. Yay...


KT

Yup we got clear sky covered. Of course it seems to be cloudy and there is a BA thunderstorm going rightnow

I went outside and watched the cloud swoop right in :mad:

May set a 2:00 am alarm...May not.


KT