This Sunday, August 12th, will be the height of the Perseids meteor shower. Plus, there will be a new moon to sweeten the deal. If anyone can get any photographic or video images of this I’d greatly appreciate it. I’ll most likely be restricted to a light polluted capital city, and might not be able to see the sights (relative visiting).
I saw an awesome Leonids shower a few years ago (1999) when I was traveling through a very, very low light pollution area in WV. We pulled over (having prior knowledge that the storm was happening) and a few people stopped to see if we were having car problems. We just said “Look” and pointed at the sky. Soon we had a few people that witnessed a fairly rare astronomical event. Good times.
Every year while I lived in Idaho, me and the gang would go up to Farragut State Park for an all-nighter to watch the shower. I would strap my jumbo sized beanbag chair to the roof of my car, then fight all night with whoever happened to steal it when I went for a soda. One year I learned that playing football with only the moon light is not a good idea. When the meteors slowed down or if the clouds rolled in, we would howl at the wolves/coyotes/whatever and freak out the girls that tagged along, saying, “look, there is one over there! HOOWWWOOOOOOWWWWLLLLL!”
Ah, I miss those days. I may have to find somewhere to go watch them this year, as I am off work Monday. Won’t be the same with out the Beverly’s crew*.
Yep. Hope it’s clear. I will probably be outside watching Saturday, instead of Sunday, though–6:30 a.m. comes really quickly if I’m up past 11 these days. I hope Saturday’s pretty good… fingers crossed.
Definitely on my list of things to do, but I still haven’t decided from where to watch. DfrntBrother lives out in the country, but is hours away. I’ve told my daughter, but doubt conditions will be ideal for her family (metro Phoenix). My backyard will probably be good enough if I can kill the streetlight for a few hours. (I’m kidding, really. I would never vandalise City property where I would probably get caught. )
Along the same lines, what do we know about Mars on August 27? I got an e-mail a few days ago from someone which claimed that Mars will be so close to Earth on that day that it will seem like we have two moons. (And it won’t be this close again until 2287.) I am having a little problem believing the apparent size part.
I will absolutely be watching them this weekend. I am lucky to be out near a beach away from any big cities. Too be honest though, I used to have a lot of success with these showers in high school despite living in the NYC metropolitan area. Of course, it could not even compare to the time I watched it in the mountains hundreds of miles away from major cities.
I have always made it a tradition to drive to eastern Washington (always clear, no light pollution) and watch them.
I am taking Monday off for this very reason and bringing my new fiancé who has never watched them before.
We are renting a room at Soap Lake. The Bridal suite was all that was available, it unfortunately doesn’t have mineral water in the rooms. So we will have to play in the mud outside.
During the day I was planing on having a look at the Ice age floods and hitting some Geocaches
and of course, the fruit stands.
MacGyver.
I’m going camping, shouldn’t be too light, but I’ll be about 3 hours from Chicago on Lake Michigan. Anybody have any ideas on how to photograph these things?
The astronomers here on Hawaii (we got lots of 'em, thanks to the observatories on Mauna Kea) say that for us, it is likely that the show will be quite good on the night of August 11, which is a Saturday. So, CairoSon and I have rented a cabin at the Mauna Kea State Park that night, but around dusk will head up the mountain to the Mauna Kea Visitors Center, which will be open past midnight for the show.
My husband, stuck in Egypt, is practically spitting with envy.
Oh yes. We have a caravan going out to the BLM just outside of Joshua Tree for this one. It’s super out there, low horizons, no light, and on the BLM land, nobody hassles ya.
We went out there a few years ago for the leonids, and saw the most impressive meteor ever to skim this rock. It was low in the horizon before it was really dark. We all happened to be looking in the right direction when we heard a weird whistle and saw a very bright streak of purple light skim across the horizon, changing to pink and then white. Halfway through its display, we heard it crackle.
Ain’t never going to beat that, but we keep trying!
I’ll keep my eyes peeled as I head home from the night shift, but I don’t expect to see much since I live smack in the middle of a far too bright city.
One year when I was in Vancouver, I saw a few Perseids on my late ride home from work.
That sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime thing! Wow–you are so lucky.
I have seen a couple that were so bright, lasted so “long” (relatively speaking), and filled enough of the sky, that they were a bit scary. I keep looking up for another experience like that.
Hey - thanks for the reminder! We usually blow it off because of light pollution, but this year we’ll be at a cabin on a lake pretty far from population… Cool!
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So we will have to play in the mud outside. 
