Friday, August 8, 2008

08' Perseid Meteor Shower

From Spaceweather.com:

...COUNTDOWN TO THE PERSEIDS: The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks one week from today, on Tuesday, August 12th. The best time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday morning when forecasters expect 50 to 100 meteors per hour. Get away from city lights if you can; plan a camping trip! The darker the sky, the more meteors you will see...The source of the Perseids is Comet Swift-Tuttle, which has littered the August portion of Earth's orbit with space dust. The dusty zone is broad and Earth is already in its outskirts. As a result, even before the peak on August 12th, you may see some "early Perseids" streaking across the night sky...

Driving home from our Lammas Sabbat/UUA vigil the other night, Aug 3rd, I saw a very bright meteor. It was a very clear and beautiful night and Jupiter had been holding court. The meteor appeared fairly high up and too my left (I was traveling due south). There was a distinct arch to it's trajectory, which seemed to grow steeper as it fell to earth. I have the impression it may have landed somewhere, or at least it dipped below the southwestern horizon. But the most remarkable thing about it was that it developed a emerald glow just before I lost sight of it.

2 comments:

Livia Indica said...

Oh! Thanks for the reminder!

Anonymous said...

I first saw this event a few years back, and it was so cool. Guess I've already missed the peak for this year!