Meteor Shower

kazza81

It's been reported that there's a meteor shower that is most visible from Aug 11th -13th
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/earthskys-meteor-shower-guide

I was just wondering would anyone know, what kind of visibility that I would have being in the southeast of Ireland. If anyone here could help that would be great.
Thanks in advance

jfSDAS

hi kazza81,

I had typed up a reply last night but accidentally closed the tab before submitting the post Hope to get a chance later tonight to redo the info!

Some links though in the meantime are on my earlier post with the August sky notes. In short, if the sky is clear on Saturday (or Sunday) night then you just need to look towards the northeast, about a quarter to a third of the way up the sky.

John

I saw 3 last Sat night and 1 last night (wasnt looking up any other nights)
Am in outback Australia so the sky is simply amazing out here.

I saw one move in a straight line then bend off - never saw that before must of skimmed off the top of the earth??

Cú Giobach

jfSDAS wrote: »

In short, if the sky is clear on Saturday (or Sunday) night then you just need to look towards the northeast, about a quarter to a third of the way up the sky.

Just want to say first well done with the "sky notes", nice to see people taking time to share like that.

I think looking in any particular cardinal direction for a meteor shower means you miss quite a few behind you plus you have a lot of ground in your FOV, though these do originate in Persius that's not where you see them all, the best option is straight up, that way you have all sky in your field of view and the ground in your blind spot behind you, and it's easy to move your eyes fast if you glimpse one out of the corner of your eye.
So I think the best viewing position is lying as flat as possible (sun lounger?) orientated with your feet NE.

Saw some brilliant ones last night, the fog is preventing any sightings tonight.

2 stroke

Saw some good ones tnite, was watching north east quadrant of sky, decided to go in, turned around and said "that doesn't belong there", caught the iss just before it faded away.

muskyj

agree with Cú Giobach on where best to look to catch most meteors. was out for just over 30 minutes there and saw 7 perseids (2 bright) and 2 non perseid meteors. that was from very light polluted Galway city but it is a lovely clear night though.

2 stroke

Generally I agree with Cú aswell. My favourite place for skyviewing is lying on the trampoline with the net down, but tnite northeast was my best view, neighbours on holiday have left their security lights on.

muskyj

2 stroke wrote: »

Generally I agree with Cú aswell. My favourite place for skyviewing is lying on the trampoline with the net down, but tnite northeast was my best view, neighbours on holiday have left their security lights on.

my bleeping neighbours turned their security lights on at midnight last night. what was that all about? ok so i did make a bit of noise moving my garden chair around to get the best and most comfortable viewing spot but still...!

Cú Giobach

muskyj wrote: »

my bleeping neighbours turned their security lights on at midnight last night. what was that all about? ok so i did make a bit of noise moving my garden chair around to get the best and most comfortable viewing spot but still...!

Ahh security lights don't you love 'em.
Sometimes I dream of cutting the ESB line that passes through the field behind my house, it's supplying a farm over half a mile away that you would swear has an O-type star burning in their yard.

Sky looking good for a few tonight, let's hope it keeps up for tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Iancar29

Best get out while yous can tonight lads.. 2moro isnt looking good with a front arriving in the SW 2moro morning.

Cú Giobach

Iancar29 wrote: »

Best get out while yous can tonight lads.. 2moro isnt looking good with a front arriving in the SW 2moro morning.

Oy, Get back to the weather forum you, and bring your efin front with you.

bogman

Agree, tonight's the night, tomorrow nights is going to be clouded over

TheGimp

bogman wrote: »

Agree, tonight's the night, tomorrow nights is going to be clouded over

Clear skies, whiskey, but nothing yet.

jfSDAS

hi everyone,

Great to see all the reports of Perseids spotted thisweek. Fingers crossed for clear skies the next few nights!

The mention by a couple of posters to observe towardsthe zenith is good advice but the best place to look is about 40 to 50 degrees (4to 5 fist-widths at arms length) from Perseus itself. Meteors become visibleand brightest about this distance from the radiant (see a couple of paragraphsbelow). This makes the constellations of Pegasus (specifically, the Great Square),Cassiopeia, and, to a lesser extent, towards the Plough/Polaris, the bestdirections to look in. Your eyes will take in a wide sweep of sky anyway sodon't worry if unsure about what direction towards the northeast is best! DownloadStellarium at http://www.stellarium.org and move the view to the NE where youwill see Perseus and the other mentioned star groups above the horizon.

Meteor rates will increase a little during the nightas Perseus gets higher in the sky. They'll also improve after local midnight asthe night side of Earth will then be turning towards our direction of orbitaround the Sun, meaning we sweep up more particles of meteoroid dust (ratherlike driving into a cloud of bugs, as one analogy put it!)

The dust particles in a meteor stream are movingthrough space in parallel but the effect of perspective causes shooting stars toappear to diverge from a small patch of sky when we trace their paths backwardsas they flash into view (rather like railway lines receding into the distance).This source is termed the radiant and is named after the constellation in whichit lies. Thus we get the December Geminids appearing from the constellation ofthe Heavenly Twins, the Lyrids in April from Lyra, etc.

If you have a pair of binoculars to hand it is worthsweeping the region between Perseus and Cassiopeia to pick up the famed DoubleCluster and a number of other lovely star clusters. Centered around Mirphak, oralpha Persei, the brightest star of the constellation, is the wonderful Melotte20 cluster, one of my favourite groups. These are white-hot OB-type young starsblazing at a furious rate. They are part of a stream of stellar OB associations stretched across the sky at an angle tippedabout 20 degrees to the plane of the Milky Way. The stream is also known asGould's Belt and is a fascinating study of the archaeology of our Galaxy whichcan be seen with the unaided eye or binoculars -- see http://kencroswell.com/GouldBelt.html

clear skies!
John

TheGimp

And we're off, two huge ones there!

kerry4sam

I've seen the nicest clear sky tonight, first in months! Some lovely twinkling stars scattered all over but nothing else so far where I am

Super-Rush

Same here. Loads of stars and thats about it.

It's just starting to cloud over a little here; well, more hazy than cloudy. Stars are still visible in spots but over all visibility isn't great. Despite that, I've seen about fifteen meteors over the past hour or so. I've just been lying on a sun lounger, facing roughly NE and focusing my eyes at about 50-60 degrees above the horizon. I think I'll give up now, though; this hazy, low-visibility viewing is quite boring: when there are no meteors there's not much else to look at, apart from the brightest stars that are easily seen.

I hope others are having better luck with clear skies.

Super-Rush

So far all i've seen is three shooting stars and one satellite.

TheGimp

Saw two satellites, the ISS and about seven meteors.

Tomk1

Saw a good few last night, but no firework-type, on Thursday night about 2:30 am saw a great one, that left a need for more, but now it looks like its all over, such a shame.
On a lighter note, pretty sure I saw the ISS last night, only 2nd time ever seeing it so a great bonus.

Veloce

Spotted 1 at the corner of my eye last night about 23:30. Will keep an eye out tonight but weather doesn't look promising.

dacogawa

You can keep an eye on the cloud cover here http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observations/?tab=map&map=Rainfall under satellite visible

There does look like some breaks (fingers crossed)

Also there's a thread in the weather section http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056719955

Happy hunting tonight!

shizz

I think I seen the ISS last night. It was at the time it was suggested to have been seen but it was purely by accident. I was delighted to see it. It was extremely bright.

dacogawa

shizz wrote: »

I think I seen the ISS last night. It was at the time it was suggested to have been seen but it was purely by accident. I was delighted to see it. It was extremely bright.

Yes, I'd say it was the ISS or it could have been PROGRESS47P, here's a timetable for when they does flyovers
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=Ireland&region=None&city=Dublin

pontia

saw 3 last night,all in same area,think the iss shortly after 1 and possible 2 sats as well,gave up eventually

ladysarastro

Just had an amazing clear patch of sky over my house for the last half an hour. Seen 5 big beautiful ones, 3 really meh ones, a satellite and and a bat that I named Frankie. Very pleased

tippspur

Sure enough as there is something interesting in the sky to see the clouds come back to ruin it,typical.

tricky D

At last the clouds cleared enough for me to see 3 good ones last night in a short period (10 mins).