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Re: (meteorobs) Halloween Meteors
At 10:25 AM 11/1/98 EST, you wrote:
>Hi List,
>
>I thought I'd share with you the fun time I had observing meteors last
night,
>deep in a forest on Halloween night... this is my first real posting so
>forgive my rambling style, I'm a writer and get carried away sometimes!
>Still, this List seems a little more tolerant of longer, more personal
>postings, so here goes...
>
>Last night I was wearing my "astronomy expert" hat (I should maybe point out
>here that I run my town's astronomical society (( www.http://subnet.virtual-
>pc.com/gr537450 )) and write kids books about spaceflight and astronomy, and
>do a lot of astronomy Outreach work in schools in my area) for a
sky-watching
>event at a visitor centre deep in a forest, way, way away from any lights.
>Together with a handful of forest rangers I took a group of 30 people, of
all
>ages, on a trek through the woods, following a winding, twisting trail
>toward a wide open clearing which I'd been assured had a magnificent view of
>the sky. As we set off around 8.10UT, our torch beams cutting through the
>darkness so we looked like a line of X-Files extras, I heard someone shout
>out in surprise, and turned to see a lovely magnitude 0 blue meteor falling
>from Perseus. Good start! I thought to myself as we entered the forest...
>
>When we emerged from the trees once more it was like entering a planetarium:
>walking out from under the frost-covered branches we entered a wide
clearing,
>and instead of looking up at the undersides of trees we were suddenly
>standing under a dome of glittering, sparkling stars. The sky was a deep,
>glacial blue, painted with feathered streaks of pearly-white clouds, lit by
>the beautiful, almost-Full Moon which was blazing over tall fir trees to the
>south east. The Moon was framed between two planets: Jupiter was a
>spectacular sight, shining just a finger's width away on the right, and
>Saturn was glowing sublimely a hand's length away on the left. I turned
>around slowly... the Plough was scraping the northern horizon... the Summer
>Triangle was jabbing into the peaks of the western hills... it was
>perfect...!
>
>Over the next 90mins I showed everyone - including a couple of kids bravely
>dressed as vampires and ghosts! - various sights through my trusty 3" Tasco
>reflector. The Moon was breathtaking, and dazzlinglybright in the frosty
>air... Jupiter's cloud belts stood out very clearly, and Callisto and Europa
>were both easy to see... of course, everyone was stunned by their first
sight
>of Saturn's rings, it's something you never forget, isn't it? A couple of
>people half-jokingly asked "Okay... where's the picture hidden?", but the
>look in their eyes was something wonderful to see...!
>
>But one of the main reasons for the sky-watch was to let people know about
>the forthcoming Leonids, and I distributed information sheets giving them
all
>the details. There's a great deal of excitement over here in the UK about
the
>Leonids, but people like me are having a VERY hard time warning people not
>to expect too much, especially in the aftermath of the crushingly-
>disappointing Giacobinids; our media spent the whole day telling people what
>they WOULD see that evening, and of course in the end nothing happened, and
>if you listened very carefully you could actually hear the Ghost of Kohoutek
>laughing... Now the papers are full of accounts of how worried NASA and
>aerospace companies are about the damage their orbiting hardware might
>suffer, and people are expecting the sky to fall... it's not easy asking
>people to calm down when we're so excited ourselves, but we *are* trying...!
>
>Anyway, meteors... Over the 90mins we were there we saw three meteors. One
>skipped away from the Pleiades at 21.05UT, flaring as it headed towards
>Capella, and two others fell away from central Perseus, just a couple of
>minutes apart around 20.50UT. Amazingly, to say that we live in a relatively
>light pollution free part of the northern UK (the Sky Watch was held at
>Whinlatter Forest, nr Keswick in the "Lake District National Park" in
>Cumbria, if you're bored enough to look for it in your atlas!) these were
the
>first meteors some of the attendees had ever seen, and their delighted gasps
>were proof of their wonder. I hope they get to see plenty of Leonids later
>this month...! Almost all of those people who had seen shooting stars before
>had seen them "in the summer", suggesting that they'd seen Perseids. I heard
>several accounts of how people trekked up hills or drove out into the
>countryside to watch "the shooting stars"...
>
>After trekking back through the forest I showed the group some specimens
from
>my modest meteorite collection, and they were amazed to be able to hold some
>real "star-stones", including a Canyon Diablo from Meteor Crater, a small
>Holbrook whole stone and my beautiful Moldavite. My tiny bits of Zagami dust
>went down well, too! All in all, I am pretty sure everyone went away
>satisfied.
>
>My astronomical society is holding a Leonid Watch on the evening of the
17th,
>and if people are interested to hear how it goes I'll post a report on the
>List.
>
>Again, my apologies if this hasn't been very informative or scientific,
but I
>thought it might give you a glimpse into what's going on over here in a tiny
>corner of the UK.
>Yes, very nice description of the event. It psyched me up to go out and
look. Unfortunately, it remains overcast here in gods country
(central-Iowa, USA)Ha-Ha. Nice writing though.
Clear Skies,
Mark Mikutis
E-mail: perseus1@pcpartner.net
>Regards,
>
>Stuart Atkinson,
>Secretary, Cockermouth Astronomical Society, UK.
>
>P.S. On a slightly different subject... has anyone ever calculated which
>meteor showers - if any - future martian colonists will be able to see? Will
>they have annual showers to look forward to, as we do? IT may be a really
>dumb question, but I'd really like to know so I can work it into the kids SF
>novel I'm currently writing. Thanks in advance! - Stu
>
>
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