So,Perseids Meteor Shower is Tonight!

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by CLPrime

 

Criminy. This place is getting ridiculous.
Today is the 10th. The peak is on the 13th.
What's 13 - 10?

where are you phage im in the mountain time zone current date is aug. 11th 12:16 am

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by BobAthome

 

Meteors do not appear outside of Earth's atmosphere.
That is a cosmic ray striking the sensor.

"Criminy. This place is getting ridiculous. " if i might use your quote,,
u know i try too understand, life and my enviroment , cause hey i like too get along and enjoy scientific banter, occasionally,, but when i see a reply that is so blatently obvious in its narrow minded, petty -ness,,
and i quote "Meteors do not appear outside of Earth's atmosphere. ",, u are right,, but hey were looking into "space" so must be a comet??? ,, so why do i bother?,, cause i find the truth of things facinating,, as for the Its a Cosmic ray?? lol,, u know u can slow down these videos too ,, millisecs u know,, very interesting too watch one that has not been speeded up to 7 days in 7 seconds,, i know thats not, very accurate but ,, 2 seconds ,, 1.4 seconds,, who's counting?
Some people are.
ohh and thanks Phage for being ,, well a good indication that there is indeed something rotten,, too the core.

Oh good, thought for a moment I was seeing things.
Good to know I haven't lost it, well, not completely yet.

I can't help myself...




Just $#!t stirring

So,did anyone actually go outside and watch it? I did and it was a decent show.
And I know the peak isn't til Saturday morn,but dudes,it's still going on now.
Jeez!

reply to post by kdog1982


I had intended to mention that - that, regardless of when the peak is, the shower is still happening now, so it doesn't matter, really - but I guess I didn't care enough after being told I couldn't do basic math. You're right, though, of course...it extends for days on either side of the peak date.

I would have loved to have gotten out and watched myself some meteors last night. Unfortunately, it was overcast, and probably foggy, so I didn't get to. Hopefully, it will be clear tonight. I always enjoy meteor spotting. I never wish on any, but it's fun regardless.
Heck, I stare at the sky when there's no meteor shower.

reply to post by kdog1982


Saw some cracking long streaks last year,hope its another good one.
Think its best in 2 days time.

Hope you see some more good ones!

reply to post by kdog1982

will i see them from england
and at what time do you think
would be best?

reply to post by philware


never mind its cloudy out tonight
hope somebody gets some good vids
and shows those that miss the showers
please

Originally posted by kdog1982
So,did anyone actually go outside and watch it? I did and it was a decent show.
And I know the peak isn't til Saturday morn,but dudes,it's still going on now.
Jeez!

I got lucky last night around 1130pm. I stepped out & one streaked from
east to west right in front of the moon. Very bright, fiery pink & left a trail.
20 minutes later the marine layer moved in & blocked out the sky.

I have been seeing a decent display all week long, missed out last night, tonight would have been great also but raining ...

reply to post by mugger

I caught a few goodies last night,but the moon was really really bright.I don't know about tonight though'
suppose to storm and rain

Originally posted by philware
reply to post by kdog1982

 

will i see them from england
and at what time do you think
would be best?

I'm not really sure,you should check your local news sources.

reply to post by philware


In case it clears off...

Look up towards the North-East from 11 pm onwards on the nights of August 11th, 12th and 13th and 14th. The peak of activity - when you might expect to see 20-30 meters an hour is predicted to be between 00:30 and 03:00 BST on the morning of the 13th. This is the best time to observe on the other nights too as Perseus is rising in the sky and the Earth is facing the meteor stream.

The shower in quite long lived, so it is worth looking out any night from the 10th to the 15th of August.

Link

I'm hoping someone might be able to help me understand what I saw tonight as astronomy is not a topic with which I am very familiar.

I live in the Greater Toronto Area, about 50 miles north of the CN Tower. It was about 9:20pm.

My spouse and I were walking our dogs on a baseball diamond. The field was very dark, but there were lights nearby for tennis courts and a club house.

I glanced up and saw something travel across the sky, from north to south, at about the same speed as a shooting star. It was much bigger and brighter than a shooting star though, and it was a yellow/orange colour. As quickly as it appeared and streaked across the sky, it disappeared.

This is the really peculiar part: my spouse, who was watching the dogs, didn't see the streak of light but began to look up thereafter. My spouse then noticed what appeared to be a distant star. The weird thing about this star was that it appeared to be zig-zagging very quickly. Its movement varied from a zig-zag motion to a swimming motion (picture a boat moving on the water.) We observed this for at least 15 minutes.

After taking the dogs home, we returned to the same spot. By this time there was too much cloud cover to see any stars but we did take the iPad. Based on what it told us, we believe it might have been Epsilon 1, Lyrae.

My question is do stars zig-zag? Thanks in advance for any insight anyone can offer.

reply to post by Reaching

No, they don't. But they can appear to. You have perfectly described the autokinetic effect.
psycnet.apa.org...

reply to post by Phage


Thanks very much for the insight Phage.

I read the link you provided regarding the auto-kinetic effect and it indicates that this effect is caused by staring at an object for too long.

Since we actually wondered if our eyes could be playing tricks, we took turns looking away. Despite looking away periodically, the star seemed to continue to zig-zag.

It was a peculiar experience.

Do you think that the yellow/orange streak of light I observed prior to noticing this star might have been a meteor?

Thanks again.

reply to post by Reaching

It sounds very much like you saw a meteor.

The autokinetic effect has been studied quite a lot, it can pose a real danger for aircraft pilots, leading to disorientation. It doesn't really take staring for "too long", just watching a single point of light for a short time can cause it. It's also interesting that it seems that people can influence others' perceptions of the movement.

In the next phase of the experiment, groups of subjects were put in the dark room, 2 or 3 at a time, and asked to agree on a judgment. Now Sherif noted a tendency to compromise. People who usually made an estimate like 6 inches soon made smaller judgments like 4 inches. Those who saw less movement, such as 2 inches, soon increased their judgments to about 4 inches. People changed to more resemble the others in the group.

www.psywww.com...

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Reaching

 

It sounds very much like you saw a meteor.

The autokinetic effect has been studied quite a lot, it can pose a real danger for aircraft pilots, leading to disorientation. It doesn't really take staring for "too long", just watching a single point of light for a short time can cause it. It's also interesting that it seems that people can influence others' perceptions of the movement.

In the next phase of the experiment, groups of subjects were put in the dark room, 2 or 3 at a time, and asked to agree on a judgment. Now Sherif noted a tendency to compromise. People who usually made an estimate like 6 inches soon made smaller judgments like 4 inches. Those who saw less movement, such as 2 inches, soon increased their judgments to about 4 inches. People changed to more resemble the others in the group.

www.psywww.com...

Thanks for that ,Phage.
Back when I was drinking,when I thought the stars were dancing around,I thought it was the liquor.
Ok,it was the liquor.But it still happens without it.

Thanks again Phage.

I feel pretty fortunate to have noticed a meteor entirely by accident.

I just read a little about Epsilon 1 Lyrae on Wikipedia.

I think the star that we observed may well have been Epsilon 1 Lyrae because at one point, I could have sworn that it morphed into two stars. (At this point my spouse was taking a turn looking away and as such, called me a nutbar.)

The second light was smaller, but it seemed to be directly beside it.