Topic: Perseids: Meteor light show set to dazzle (Read 5200 times)

admin · « **on:** August 12, 2015 »

Quote

Skywatchers around the world are in for a dazzling display as the annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak on Wednesday night.

Viewing is weather-dependent, however, and cloud cover is forecast to spoil the party across southern England.

Above the clouds, conditions are unusually favourable because the shower will coincide with a new moon.

The Perseids are pieces of Comet Swift-Tuttle; each August, the Earth passes through a cloud of the comet's debris.

Swift-Tuttle shed this material long ago, and it is now distributed as a tenuous "river of rubble" along the comet's orbit around the Sun.

These particles of ice and dust (which range from the size of a grain of sand to around as big as a pea) hit the Earth's atmosphere at about 60km/s (37 miles/s).

As they do so, they heat the air around them, causing the characteristic streak of light.

The meteor shower is visible across the Northern hemisphere and from as far as subtropical latitudes south of the Equator. Prime viewing hours, wherever you are, stretch from about 23:00 local time on 12 August until the morning of 13 August.

This is when the shower's "radiant," the point from which the meteors appear to originate, is high up in the sky. The higher the radiant, the more meteors appear all over the sky.

More:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33850710

specimanYak · « **Reply #1 on:** August 14, 2015 »

I trundled down to the Sallagh Braes and camped at Knockdhu on Wednesday in the hope of catching this. The weather was cloudy all evening though. Thursday was a scorcher of a day and less cloud cover but I had to return home before the evening.
Did any-one else catch a glimpse of it?

Also, I noticed this wooden structure in one of the fields below, could any-one enlighten me as to what it is.

http://i.imgur.com/sNqopYn.jpg

LandyLiam · « **Reply #2 on:** August 14, 2015 »

I bivvied on Carn in the Mournes with the Scouts and got a perfect cloudless calm evening, saw about 50 meteor streaks, pretty awesome evening.

this was actually a headtorch, but we did see one meteor that was nearly as bright!

a wee meteor streak with a faint milky way in the background

specimanYak · « **Reply #3 on:** August 16, 2015 »

Brilliant Liam, thanks for posting them. You got a perfectly clear sky for it, I called it a night around 2am as there was nothing to see where I was.

RedLeader · « **Reply #4 on:** August 17, 2015 »

Great stuff guys. Odd that Liam had a completely clear night and SpecimanYak didn't get to see a thing.

whoRya · « **Reply #5 on:** August 17, 2015 »

Wednesday night was meant to be the peak night for viewing but it was completely clouded over where I am. But I took a drive up into countryside on Thursday night and lay down in a field for an hour to watch them. I thought they were cool. Much better than anything I had seen before. A bivvy is the way to go for the future.

Spud · « **Reply #6 on:** August 17, 2015 »

I was in the annalong valley with friends wed night, Sky was clear as a bell, saw at least 30 meteors, best I've ever seen, was quite a spectacle!

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Perseids: Meteor light show set to dazzle

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