While I did not announce it like I often do here, we’ve just passed the peak of the Perseids meteor shower, tied in with some halfway decent viewing conditions and, unlike many other showers in the past, acceptable temperatures to be standing out in a dark location for hours at a time. I actually went out to try and capture
Tag: Perseids meteor shower
Visibly different, part 24
What were you up to 35 years ago?
I was a bit surprised to find this one while reviewing my old negatives, because I don’t remember it at all. Nonetheless, I can pin it down to central New York in 1987, and even better, it most likely was taken on August 13th. Naturally, this is a long night exposure anchored on Polaris, the north star, and shows a long-trail meteor
Glutton for punishment?
I know I am. That’s why you’ll see me down at the lake in a few nights, because the Perseids meteor shower is peaking on August 12th, but of course, you’re likely to still see some within a few days before or after, so whenever the conditions suit you, have at it.
The nicer bit is, the moon will be a waxing crescent, so setting in the early part of the evening and long gone by midnight,
Another alert
In the next couple of nights, the Perseids meteor shower is supposed to be peaking, and of course, I say this with a certain fatalism, because my personal history of meteor showers is pretty disappointing: one fantastic shower,
Stormy season
Just a quick note, but there’s another meteor shower peaking soon, this time the Perseids, supposed to reach maximum on the nights of the 12th and 13th. I tell you this mostly to point out that, yet again, the moon is going to be too bright to make much of them, being damn near full those nights. I’m going to have to sit down and calculate how often either a) the moon has been too bright,
Just checking
Hey, are you out right now seeing how the Perseids meteor shower is doing? We finally have one that falls on a dark night, almost perfectly timed with the new moon, which is about the best point in the lunar cycle you can hope for.
It is, of course, raining like hell here. Remember this post from last year? Yeah. It’s kinda like having a white christmas, only not.
Guess what?
Talk about timing. Tomorrow, Saturday August 12th, is National Miss An Astronomical Event Because of Shitty Conditions Again Day. Yes indeed, it’s the day (or rather the night) where you plan on trying to see something cool going on above our heads, but can’t because the clouds (that have been gone for weeks) rolled back in, or it’s a freaking full moon that puts