Ever Seen a Good Meteor Shower?

[TalonX]

When I lived in Arizona a few months, I was taken with the clarity of the sky at night, and the closeness of the stars.

Later I learned we were at 4000 ft elevation, so the stars were actually closer.

[Meatwad]

Meteor Echoes from Radar at Lake Kickapoo, Texas  On-Line. USAF Radar at Lake Kickapoo, Texas

http://science.nasa.gov/audio/meteor/navspasur.m3u




67.24 MHz. SSB Meteor Detection at Roswell   On-Line.  TV-Video Channel 4 Meteor burst. The slowly changing or steady tones are usually caused by aircraft or ground wave signals. The sudden pings that sometimes last for several seconds and then fade are typically meteor activity. (Much more awesome to listen to. Sounds spacey)

http://science.nasa.gov/audio/meteor/meteorburst.m3u

[ROC]

moot, that is so kewl!

Word of advice, if a very cute girl at a koa campground out around southern Idaho invites you to her tent because her kerosene lamp is broken and she doesn't know how to fix it, Don't say you had a long day and toss her a flashlight.

She was gone the next morning and left me pictures of what I missed

[moot]

That does sound familiar!

About the Perseids, now that I think about it, I believe their trajectory out in space is more or less southbound, which would be a good reason for only being visible from the northern hemisphere.  So Iraq might not be out of the picture.

[VWE]

I was up at 4am today and did see some, a couple of real nice ones that created a bight luminescent trail for about 10 seconds after it streaked across the sky.

I remember as a kid seeing a satellite cross the sky and thinking how rare that was but this morning it looked like LAX with all the satellites I saw criscrossing the sky.

[jhookt]

is there a website that gives the heads up for the next shower?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

I know websites that give links to golden showers..

[texasmom]

Jhook, I've got a link to a schedule at home. I'll post it later.

Saw a few nice ones yesterday evening. My kiddos missed em though.

[LTARokit]

Not much on showers up here.  But without fail,every winter we get the full display of Northern Lights.  Sometimes not so colorful, kind of dull......................... .then there's times the color is so vivid and bright ya just have to pull over and enjoy.

[Halo]

Stretched out awhile on the back deck lounger but in the suburbs was lucky to count maybe 40 stars out of the jillions way out there.  Saw what I guess was a satellite, bright as any star, slow and distinct horizon to horizon streak.

Glad to hear many of you have seen such spectaculars.  Always something to look forward to, especially when we sometimes get to the declining empty spaces on Earth here and there.

[Maverick]

I was outside for a bit after midnight Central time and saw 4 of them. One was really great and the others were quick streaks.

[68ROX]

Meteor showers have predictable yearly schedules...

http://www.amsmeteors.org/showers.html

As a amateur radio operator, I use meteor showers to be able to make radio contacts with hams I wouldn't normally be able to under other propagational circumstances.

These meteors are generally no bigger than a grain of sand, but when they enter earth's atmosphere and begin to burn up in the higher regions of the ionisphere, they "ionize" that tiny strata where the burn trail is, causing radio signals in the 25 to 450 mHz range to go further than they normally would without the meteor ionization.

The Amateur Radio Relay League's 28 mHz 10 meter "contest" in December is set to coincide with an annual meteor shower, so that during years of low sunspot activity (like now), there is at least "some" chance at longer distance propagation using meteor contacts.

The skills it takes to make contacts under this kind of propagation is intense.

When you get a meteor "ping" you have to work FAST to exchange the required information...at best, you may have 45 to 50 seconds (at 28 mHz) before the meteor ionization is gone....fail to get it done means you very well might have a busted QSO that won't count in your score.

The next meteor might not have the same characteristics to the same geograpical area.

Some meteor showers have a low (meteors/hour) rate, like 15-30...some have upwards of 60 to 70.

You also have to be there at times when the shower will "peak".

73 de K5TEN


68ROX

[Replicant]

Back in the late 80s I stayed up late one night and viewed the Perseid meteor shower.  I managed to see 60 within an hour including a really bright greenish one that was directly overhead.  Very spectacular.  The weather has been somewhat unreliable since...