BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot

Subject: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Genie
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 01:56 AM

Not only is tonight the main night for viewing the Perseid Meteor Shower in N America, but it's actually pretty clear here in the Portland area.

Too late for me to go find a good viewing place (I'm too tired to go out driving), but it's not too late for others, if you've got the time and energy. The best viewing is usually in the wee hours of the morning.

Some years the Perseids are pretty spectacular.

: )

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 03:13 AM

I went out for about five minutes last night. The sky was black and the stars were splendid, and I saw a big, bright shooting star right away.

I went out just now, and stayed for the length of a margarita. The moon hadn't set yet and the neighbor has her yard lighted up like a used-car lot, so I didn't see any shooting stars at all. Maybe I'll watch a movie and try later. Sometimes I wish I could shoot out the neighbor's light. I think she's afraid of living in the country - so, I ask, why did she move to the country?

Still, it was nice to see our magnificent Ponderosa Pines in the moonlight.

-Joe, Colfax, California-

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 03:25 AM

APOD - 2008 August 9 tho the pic was taken in 2000, it still shows what you northern hemisphere dwellers might see.

sandra (what's the the length of a margarita, Joe - same as the length of a piece of string?)

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:03 AM

It depends entirely on the size of the glass.... I favour the goldfish bowl on a stem size myself...

Anyhoo... saw some amazing shooting stars last weekend in Germany, from MudGuard's balcony - they were fantastic but we weren't sure if it was the beginning of the Perseids or not.

Since Micca got back to the UK, it's done nothing but rain intermittently - although this morning was more monsoon than intermittent.... so we've got no chance of seeing anything. Can someone take him away again please?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:12 AM

Ah - but the Gibbous Moon will interfere...

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:14 AM

you could send him to drought-striken areas of Oz, I'm sure they' love to meet him!

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:17 AM

don't send the Gibbous Moon, send Micca

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Stu
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:38 AM

Well, it's pissing down again here (near Macclesfield, England) so it looks like another twelve months before we get a pike at the Perseids . . .

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: open mike
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 05:04 AM

the showere (meteor, that is) go on for a week or more before and after the peak day--i mean night....so try again! i forgot too--will peek out just now. or peak out.....

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: catspaw49
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:36 AM

I woke up at about 4:30 and thought about it but I took a crap instead then went back to bed.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Paul Burke
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:46 AM

Can't see the Persauds either, since they pulled him for plagiarism...

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:06 AM

In the East look northeast after 2AM when the half moon goes down.

poof there it is.

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Bee
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 01:08 PM

We had clouds.. or fog: looks the same at night anyway, black.

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 01:21 PM

Well, I didn't want to give up, so I waited until the moon was lower and went out again - this time, for the length of a Jaegermeister. Trouble is, I turned off all the lights in the house, and then tripped over a chair as I was going outside, spilling good Jaegermeister all over.

So, I got outside and sat in a chair and sipped my Jaegermeister, think of my wife who is hiking at Yosemite and doesn't have neighbors' yard lights to contend with. I tried really hard not to think of the mountain lions and bears and rattlesnakes that were out there watching for the Perseids with me. But the harder I tried, the more sure I was that I was surrounded by mountain lions and bears and rattlesnakes. Gee, and Liz thinks she has trouble with her neighbor Micca the Rainbringer....

So, anyhow, I didn't see a single shooting star.

And I got the impression that nobody saw a shooting star last night and that the whole thing was a fizzle.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 01:22 PM

In 1975, I was driving from Kansas to Seattle, and stopped to camp in the mountains outside of Denver at maybe 7500ft in a park. Set up the little pup tent...warm, clear weather - my head at an open end of the tent... when


**ZIP** *flash*...*zoom*

Yep, I had hit exactly the best night for the Perseids! One the best nights viewing I could imagine. Sometime 3-4 at a time, never 3 seconds between flashes. I watched for an hour.

Wow...

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: gnu
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 02:13 PM

Bill! Wow! What an amazing treat!

Ain't gone be squat here tonight in Moncton, NB, Canada... except fer rain, at times heavy. >;-(

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 05:02 PM

The best way I saw them was from a hammock although a lounge chair will do.

The comet Tuttle that gives us this show is about 6 miles wide.

Calculations show that it will cross our orbit in the year 3040.

Enjoy the meteorites while they last, they do get prolific at times and have big displays from time to time. One display filled the sky with light it was so intense but that was over 100 years ago.

2Am is just about the time my body says fug it Ahm tired,

Still it sounds worth it if your mind works like Joe Offer. You will be looking up surrounded by Lions and Tigers and Bears.

A wrist rocket might fix that neighbor's light ;<}

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:06 PM

Bill D, in a summer during the late 1970s I was camped near a mountain top in the Cascades (it was Three Fingers, for those of you in the Puget Sound area) during a time of spectacular aurora borealis activity. You wanted to forget about the peak the next day and sit up all night watching the sky. Amazing.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:09 PM

I just posted the lyrics to Lou & Peter Berryman's song PERSEIDS here.

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 07:31 PM

SRS ..Now that I envy. I have never seen the aurora, except in video.

I kinda miss having easy access to the mountains.

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: open mike
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 02:33 AM

sort of smoky and hazy here today so probably compromised air quality tonite too. sometimes the local park dept. dims or turns off lights
when night sky viewing is priority. (although forest fire activity does
decrease at night, and smoke "lays down" .

see international dark sky association IDSA web site has a night time map of the planet from space..you can see all major metropolitan areas by the
light they eminate..all land masses are lit up by this...

there is a movement to reuire public lighting to be shileded from shining up...funny, you'd think that would be a no-brainer...why light up the sky??!!

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: ClaireBear
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 11:37 AM

I thought I'd missed out this year, but last night I woke up at about 4:30 in the screen house (summer bedroom) just in time to see a huge one streak halfway across the sky, leaving a trail of vapor as it went. Wow!

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:50 AM

Well, it's that time of year again, time for the Perseids. I stayed out for about 20 minutes at 11 PM, and saw just one shooting star. My wife fell asleep on me, and didn't see any - but she saw lots last night, which was supposed to be the peak.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:06 AM

We've had constant cloud cover for days here, and no prospect of that changing. So no meteors for me.

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: mauvepink
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 04:29 AM

I went to a dark site on Thursday night when there was much broken cloud and some clear sky periods. Perseus was well in view. I spent around 90 minutes from midnight to 1.30AM and saw about 20-25 Perseids, a couple of stray meteorites, and several satellites in that time.

The Perseids varied a great deal from very dull, around a second's worth low intensity burn outs to some extremely bright and fast moving 'trailers' lasting over a second.

Quite a nice show all told.

mp

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 02:11 PM

Mucho cloudy here...*sigh*...but they were there read all about it here (If you look after Sat, Aug 14, go to 'archives')

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: ClaireBear
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 03:17 PM

Socked in with fog for the last two nights...will try again tonight.

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 07:38 PM

Pur sky is wide open, so may try to see them tonight. Have to be in our backyard, though as I don't think I can get Rog to budge far. He's already done a lot, today, so I'll give him a break.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Penny S.
Date: 15 Aug 10 - 08:12 AM

I have seen them several days after the 12th, on a now extinct camp site in Europe - everytime I went to the toilet building in the night.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 16 Aug 10 - 07:15 PM

Last evening just after midnight I saw several Perseid and non Perseids meteorites. Oddly the Perseids were brighter and had better trails than those I saw earlier last week. The seeing was so good last night that I was able to see Andromeda Galaxy with my naked eye.

It's been a good showing this year without doubt

mp

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: foggers
Date: 17 Aug 10 - 03:21 PM

We were up in Shetland on Thurs 12/8/10 on the last night of a very special family holiday there (my older sister lives there and travel costs limit the times we can all gather at hers). After a lovely evening together with food, wine and singing we stood outside under clear skies and watched for about 45 mins.

Never in all my life have I seen such a display of bright, trailing shooting stars; it was largely due to the lack of light pollution in the northern Isles, plus a nearly new moon and very little cloud.

Being with the people I love most, watching this awe-inspiring display will stay with me for ever!

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 08:56 AM

Actually ongoing but I thought I'd refresh rather than start a new thread.

Here is one article on where, when to watch. Peak around Aug 11, peek at night...

Subject: RE: BS: OMG! The Perseids tonight! I forgot
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Aug 20 - 07:57 PM

About five years ago we were with my sister at a cortijo in a remote part of Andalucía in southern Spain. The night sky was gin-clear and the temperature never went below 25C. Mrs Steve couldn't take the pace and had retired to bed after our night at the bar in the local village, but my sister and I (she's 14 years younger than me) got the deckchairs out flat, opened a bottle each of the local red and watched the Perseids until four in the morning. We saw many a shooting star and they were of many hues. Of course, it could be, considering the wine, that we saw twice as many as there actually were...

Good times! Though me sis and I spent the next day in fairly quiet mode...