Camelopardalids meteor shower tonight

<p>All you astrophotography enthusiasts might enjoy tonight's meteor shower, which might have as many as 200 meteors per hour. Only North America gets to watch. Info here:</p>

<p>http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/watchtheskies/may-camelopardalids.html</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks, Sarah.<br /> from elsewhere, peak at circa 2 AM EDT, from 11-3 as the NASA link says.</p>

<p>This is a new shower, since the earth is crossing a path from a more recent comet, so it <em>could be</em> great.<br /> Or maybe not.<br /> The constellation it's named for is near the North Star, by the way, for those of you who may have forgot where Camelopardalis is ;)<br /> additional source<br /> http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/20/camelopardalids_a_new_meteor_shower_from_comet_209p_linear.html</p>

<p>Thanks, Sarah. Of course, this is going to require two unlikely occurrences: Clear skies, and me being awake... ;-)</p>

<p>2am? I can't get myself up for sunrise pictures!</p>

<p>Rain and heavy clouds here as usual. :-( </p>

<p>NJ is wet and clouded over ... harumph !</p>

<p>Partly cloudy, hazy, and lots of light pollution. So far I've only seen a few faint meteors at nearly 1AM CDT.</p>

<p>Those of you with cloud cover and heavy eyelids didn't miss much. It was a lovely night for viewing here in VA. We threw a couple of chairs out on the dock and snuggled in under blankets, but alas we only saw about a half dozen meteors.</p>

<p>Sarah, I bet a long exposure with your cam might have revealed hundreds of unseen ones! Lucky you, though, to see anything at all. </p>

<p>Fortunately it rained here in NJ so I don't have to feel guilty for sleeping through the night.</p>

I rarely have been impressed with meteor showers. Sky pollution may be a factor in smaller streaks not being visible. One time during the Leonides shower I sat on a lounge chair facing up to the Long island New York sky determined not to quit until i saw at least one. After about twenty minutes I saw something that looked very dim, about one inch long in the sky and lasted about 1/4 of a second. That was it for me.

 

Most of these 200 per hour, 3 per minute, are streaks that would be very dim and maybe 1/2 inch long in the sky; small meteors that hit the atmosphere and quickly burn up in a fraction of a second. If not looking directly at them one may notice something in the sky out of the corner of one's eye but not be sure if that was a streak or just a "floater" in the eyeball. .Only once living in Puerto Rico did I see a shower in which there were bright blazing streaks passing over 1/4 of the open sky. That was good.

<p>As I said last night, I only saw a few meteors, and their directions didn't seem to correlate with the source of this shower-not.</p>

<p>Well, we saw a couple of good ones. One was spectacular and lasted a couple of seconds, burning a fuzzy, yellow trail through the sky. Funny, though, I noticed the same, JDM, that directions seemed slightly random.</p>

<p>Michael and James, we are fortunate to live somewhat in the country, so we didn't have a lot of light pollution. we also asked our immediate neighbors to turn off their outside lights for us. Our eyes were pretty well acclimated. We saw maybe four short/tiny flashes, which I doubt could be photographed. Then there were the two good ones.</p>

<p>On a funny note, one of us walked outside about 2AM to check the sky and was thrilled to immediately see several streaks of light through the sky. Unfortunately they turned out to be fireflies. :-)</p>

<p>I actually got a few lightning bugs too, and saw some fairly spectacular dark flying objects - perhaps large moths, seemed slow for birds.</p>

<p>So not a complete loss, after all :|</p>

<p>I waited decades to see Haley's Comet. I was once very impressed that Mark Twain was born and died in the 75 year return cycle of this comet. (1835/1910) When it finally showed up in 1985, I was enormously under-impressed. Fortunately, unlike Twain, I lived through it.</p>

<p>I saw a meteor from my deck before going out. So, enthusiastically at the appointed time I trudged my camera, tripod and collapsible hunting chair about a block & half to an area which is reasonably protected from surrounding lights. The sky was only partially clear, but it seemed to be an on-off thing...I watched the stars for a while then did my exposures for the next 1/2 hour....never physicallt saw a meteor, but figured the there were some captured on the camera. Eagerly rushed back home to check it out....thousands of stars, no meteors. Went on to the NASA site, and the messages were flying in....nobody anywhere seeing meteors, North America, South America, Switzerland, etc. Mentioned it to my daughter this am, and she said her friends who stayed up were disappointed as well. So, I guess next shot is August. BTW, I"ve found that ISO 500, f5.6 for 30 sec. with a 20mm lens on my Nikon D300 works great for these type shots.</p>

<p>I woke up at 2 am to find mostly cloudy skies, but watched for an hour anyway. I did see one meteor that appeared to be on the right track for this shower. </p>

<p>I doubt anything in my lifetime will will top the Leonids in 2001.</p><div></div>

<p>My grandmother often told me about watching Halley's comet in 1910. The earth passed through the tail and produced an intense meteor storm. My great great great grandfather wrote about Halley's comet in 1835, but he didn't know what it was. He thought this silver belt in the sky might be a sign of the end of the world. Edmund Halley predicted the return of the comet in 1759, but the word hadn't spread to rural Indiana in 1835. I agree with Alan that the 1986 pass was underwhelming.</p><div></div>

<p>Bats.</p>

<p>My daughter suggested that the flying, fluttering objects I saw against the stars were bats. Probably she's right. My new acquired insect book indicates that there are lots of large-sized moths in this part of the world, so that probably set me for "moth".</p>

<p>As a boy scout camping under the stars back in the 50s sometime, there was a shower that I saw that was spectacular -- I've been trying to find its equal ever since.</p>

<p>Ron, that's an impressive photo you have from 2001 against the Orion. </p>

Ron,

 

How long of a time exposure was it to capture all those meteors on one frame?

<p>That is actually a composite. An exposure of about 30 seconds captured 4 or 5 meteors and the International Space Station (the faint white streak that is not parallel to the others). Some of the other frames had two meteors. All of the meteors are in the correct position of the sky. </p>

<p>I decided to drive up to my favorite dark sky spot in the Sierras for the meteor shower. Sure, it's an 800 mile round-trip but it was worth the chance to see what might be a spectacular meteor storm. I first set up in a meadow but, as luck would have it, a large group of rowdy tourists with zero interest in the meteor shower decided to camp 15 feet from where I had set up. They then turned on some amazingly bright flood lights mounted to the side of their gigantic toy-hauler, fired up a generator, and cranked the 70s classic rock from outdoor PA speakers. So I packed up and drove a few miles east where I found a quiet spot by the lake where I bundled up to ward off the 35ºf chill and laid on the hood of my Jeep. I saw a total of 10-15 meteors from 23:30-01:00 PDT but the sky was spectacular and I saw two Iridium flares, one had to be a -8 or more, bright enough it made me squint. I also saw a large owl silently fly over, silhouetted against the stars.<br /><br />This was my setup prior to the arrival of my neighbors...<br /><br /><img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Jeep/IMG_9961_pn700_zps40bbe6ef.jpg" alt="" /><br>

The telescope was just for something to do while waiting for the meteors to fly.<br>

and here's where I ended up...</p>

<p><img src="http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r34/F1Addict/Jeep/IMG_9990_pn700_zps084bb5b0.jpg" alt="" /><br>

My Jeep is facing north, the photo is looking southeast.</p>

<p>Cool photo (the second one), even if it doesn't have meteors in it! :-)</p>

<p>Someone got a meteor (and a space station too)<br>

If you don't know about APoD, this is a good time to learn:<br>

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140525.html </p>