Tag: Meteor showers

Tonight’s Webcast

There’s a very good opportunity with more ‘show biz appeal’ coming up on May 24. We’ll be plowing through the debris field of a comet, 209p/LINEAR. A meteor shower–possibly a meteor storm!

It’s safe. The comet itself won’t be nearby. Meteors from showers never hit the Earth’s surface. They streak across the sky as they vaporize in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.

slooh_square_logoI’ve become involved with slooh.com a company that owns telescopes on the Canary Islands and in Chile and rents time to amateurs interested in using great equipment. It’s all Internet driven.

They also do webcasts whenever celestial conditions warrant. I host.

Tonight we were on for the Saturn opposition. The Sun,Earth and Saturn are aligned. Saturn is its photographically prettiest.

If you think of this as a sports broadcast, my color man was Bob Berman, an astronomer who lives in New York City’s northern exurbs. I asked questions and tried to keep the show on track.

Some of slooh’s webcasts have been viewed over a million times. Many in the high hundreds of thousands. The audience varies dependent on the excitement of the event. Tonight wasn’t a barn burner. We did show Saturn live through the Canary Islands scope.

There’s a very good opportunity with more ‘show biz appeal’ coming up on May 24. We’ll be plowing through the debris field of a comet, 209p/LINEAR. A meteor shower–possibly a meteor storm!

It’s safe. The comet itself won’t be nearby. Meteors from showers never hit the Earth’s surface. They streak across the sky as they vaporize in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.

I’ll be on for that. We should have lots of images to show.

Shut Out By Orionids

img_4269-10212012 orionids_1

This morning marked the annual Orionids meteor shower. Cometary shrapnel rockets into our atmosphere and burns up. Even though what’s burning is mostly around the size of a grain of sand, it’s a spectacular show.

Whatever. I stood outside nearly two hours and saw none! Disappointed? Absolutely.

Don’t get me wrong. It was still beautiful. The photo at the top of this entry is too small to show any detail. Please click here to see a larger version.

I met a friend at the edge of Lake Watrouss. It’s part of the reservoir system that serves Greater New Haven. I’ve photographed it many times.

Meteors burning over an idyllic lake sounded appealing.

I knew looking south over the water would bring in light from New Haven. The southern sky was much brighter that I expected. No good!

Instead we mainly pointed our cameras up. The sky still wasn’t as dark as expected. I guess the next time I’ll have to head to a much more rural spot.

My setup included a Canon 7D, Rokinon f/4 8mm lens, tripod and intervalometer. I could literally set it and forget it! Over 100 shots, mostly taken automatically.

We had a good time. We chatted while the cameras fired away. It would have been nicer had a meteor shown. Am I asking too much?

I’ve gone through my photos once. Maybe something will show up with a closer look. A dim meteor would still work for me.