Thursday, August 18, 2005

Awesome Meteors Tonight !

Had an awesome night out for a beach BBQ tonight.
Saw the 3 best bolides I have Ever seen.
2 were bright green bolides, despite the full moon.
all were moving generally east to west & in the western 1/2 of the sky
One of them was the most awesome "Fireball" I have ever seen !
It started out bright green about 20deg above the horizion In the northwest, then brightened dramaticlly to perhaps Mag -4 to 6 before BURSTING INTO YELLOW FLAMES !
It was bright enought & lasted long enough to make most people there look up in time to see it
I have never seen anything quite like it before, certainly not the yellow flames at the end, Amazing !

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Perseid Meteor Shower 2005

NT Dark Skies
OK folks ... for those of you in the northern 1/3 of the country...
Tomorrow morning (12-8) is the start of the perseids Meteor shower peak
I will be out at 4 am looking over the arafura sea, counting and enjoying the show over a thermos of hot coffee
I would love to hear any reports tomorrow that other meteor watchers may have ...
Counts / hr and the reports of the most visually spectacular meteors ...
Update 1:
OK ... the first peak of the perseids, this morning was quite a good show with about 25 in the 1 1/2 hours to 5:45am.
Also saw, perhaps 20 sporadic meteors over that time as well as a bright Iridium flare at Mag -4.
Hopefully tomorrow morning will be even better
So tell me ... did anyone else in our wide brown land get out for a look ?
Update 2:
This mornings shower was even better !
I recorded 40 perseid meteor's in the 1 1/2 hrs to 5:45 am.
at least a dozen of these left smoking trails, one which lasted for a least 1 minute.
On top of this there was a good number of sporadic meteors, with many of them seeming to have a radiant in the Orion/Taurus region,
that must just be a chance grouping though I guess.
In total I would have seen 60 odd meteors this morning, worth getting up early for !
Lets hope that the next meteor shower ( the Orionids with their peak on the 21st October) are as good as this one !
The best source of info on Meteors (& Comets too) is at:
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/index.html
Happy Meteor hunting !