Caused by debris from Halley's Comet, the 2009 Orionid meteor shower peaks on Wednesday, Oct. 21st, and forecasters say it could be an unusually good show.

FULL STORY at

NASA -The 2009 Orionid Meteor Shower (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/19oct_orionids.htm?list1320871)

Check out our RSS feed at Science @ NASA (http://science.nasa.gov/rss.xml)!

Thanks for the "heads up" (literally)!

Your welcome.

Thank you Steve! :) I'll try looking for it tomorrow evening, or the following two evenings :)

Your welcome unky.
It's usually cloudy for me here, but looks promising for the morning. :)

The Leonids next month are always cloudy for me, Well 98% of the time :(

I'm not so sure that it'll be visible from here though. But since I saw that Australia should be seeing it, plus we can see the Orion constellation from here, we might be able to see it :)

I'm not so sure that it'll be visible from here though. But since I saw that Australia should be seeing it, plus we can see the Orion constellation from here, we might be able to see it :)

I use this to prognosticate Clear Skies for my area:
Clear Sky Chart Homepage (http://cleardarksky.com/csk/)

I'm sure you know 'bout this:
World Weather Information Service - Mauritius (http://www.worldweather.org/178/m178.htm)

Looks cloudy, with showers:
http://metservice.intnet.mu/wsatpic.gif

Cool! Thanks so much for posting this. I did not know. I'll be out there tomorrow morning with my hot chocolate.

Your welcome, I'll be posting regularly on upcoming astronomical events.

As with all things of a cosmological nature some events will have more or less lead time than others.

K

Yep... I rarely watch the weather forecast :(

Rain is pouring down right now... :(

Tomorrow I guess...

I got up early, but maybe not early enough. Not sure. I only saw one really bright meteor (coming straight at me, very cool) and a couple of dim maybes. There are a lot of tall trees here, I was not sure which way to look and the sky was already starting to brighten a little in the east at 6 am. I could still see Orion very clearly in the still dark part of the sky (to the west).

The bright one I saw was in the east at about 5:30 am.

It clouded up too. But if it's clear tonight, which it is supposed to be, should I get up earlier and which way do I look? Toward Orion?

Thanks!

Hello asking. The best way to watch for meters is to lay out on the ground (or on a recliner) and look straight up. Keep scanning the skies - when a meteor happens you'll catch it in your peripheral vision easily enough. The best time to watch is typically around midnight, or maybe a little after, but it's impossible to predict. The shower is called "Orionids" because it will appear to an observer on the ground that most of the meteors will be streaking away from the area of the Orion constellation in the sky. But you won't actually see them in Orion - so just look up.

Clear Skies!

Thanks!

Straight up is nearly all (BIG) redwood trees. :(

I may have to drive somewhere to get a clear view of open sky overhead.

My apologies fellows,

... Here's a sky map for viewers in the Northern Hemisphere... And for the Lands Down Under.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_80cGISOzOds/St-J4T88IwI/AAAAAAAABHo/Mt47Kk4N7fA/s800/orionidsnorth.jpg

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_80cGISOzOds/St-J5FpHiGI/AAAAAAAABHs/RsuUufopW9A/s800/orionidssouth.jpg


There will have to be some minor adjustments as the Constellation pattern will have shifted a little to the West.

Personally I had poor viewing, as an inversion layer formed this morning causing a thick fog bank. :(


Remaining Showers for this year
Leonids night of November 17/18, morning... New Moon
Geminids night of December 13/14,. Near new Moon

Thanks! Well, it's now clear to me that all the action was taking place behind a large group of trees. Nothing I can do except go somewhere else.

... or hike uphill through the brush in the dark (not).

So sorry you have fog.

I have put the others on my calendar. :)

Your welcome.

Not sure, your location, but have you thought of Game Lands? here in Pa. There's usually one or two on a Mt. top. I have three within 5miles. 1000' elevation.

Have a friend with Farmland?

Fog is something I live with, property is 1/3 wetlands.

150-foot-tall redwood trees is something I live with.
It could be worse. They could be 300 feet...

There are places around here, like the university, but I wasn't keen on driving around in the middle of the night. No buddy to go with tonight.

Wetlands are nice. Lots of birds?

150-foot-tall redwood trees is something I live with.
It could be worse. They could be 300 feet...

There are places around here, like the university, but I wasn't keen on driving around in the middle of the night. No buddy to go with tonight.

Wetlands are nice. Lots of birds?Damn! If we lived closer I'd let you my climbing spikes. Ever in one of those canopy hammocks the Botanist's use? They're neat.

Yea at best you'd have to make arraignments with security

Well Let's see:


Deer
Eastern Bluebirds
Cooper's hawks
Red tail Hawks
Downey Woodpeckers
Horned owls
Bald Eagle
Wood Ducks
Nuthatches
Red-winged Blackbirds
Housefinch's
American Goldfinch's
Black-Capped Chicadee's
Bluejays
Brown-headed Cowbirds
Canadian Geese
Carolina Wrens
Catbirds
Chipping Sparrows
Tufted Titmouse
Mourning Dove's
Robins
Junko's
Northern Flicker
Oriole's
White-breasted Nuthatch
Northern Cardinal


That just the one's I can see, I can hear others, but can't see'em.

Show off! :)

I climbed a big fir tree once for the us forest service. The idea was to harvest cones (seeds) for their big tree plantation. Scary up there.

So you have an amazing amount of bird life. I like ducks and goldfinches. I've never seen a catbird.

Off the top of my head, I have:
• Red shouldered hawks
• Cooper's hawks
• Red tail Hawks
• Acorn Woodpeckers
• Great horned owls
• Nuthatches
• Ravens
• Crows
• Rufous sided towee
• Brown Towhee
• Black-Capped Chickadee's (They roost in my eaves, and one of them come's in the house on really cold nights and roosts in my office or bedroom)
• Stellar jays
• Scrub jays
• Great blue heron
• titmouse
• Wrentit (which, okay, I admit I only hear)
• Winter Wrens
• Fox Sparrows
• Western wood pewees
• Mourning Doves
Band tailed pigeons (sometimes)
• Robins
• Juncos
• Red-shafted Flicker (or whatever they are currently called)
• Vultures of course
• there are all kinds of little yellow warblers and once I saw thrasher, but that was a long time ago.

And if we are including mammals (you said deer), then:
•Deer
• coyotes
• bobcats
• bush rabbits
• raccoons
• western grey squirrels
• eastern grey squirrels (black morph)
• wood rats
• deer mice (rather large)
• voles
• shrews
• chipmunks

I'm not counting the opossums and skunks, which I mostly see dead on the road, or the herps--a separate list. And I've probably omitted a lot of nice animals.

And I won't bore you with the invertebrates, although 4-5 inch long banana slugs are chief among them.

It's good to see that you also have an abundance of wildlife

I can't believe I left the Ravens off my list!

DW, and me have had Heckle, and Jeckle around for over 25years, then they became the three stooges, and now with a fourth addition to the group, we're not sure what to call them?


Well... It's been nice chatting with you, but it's getting late here in the East 12:36am edt, and I need my beauty sleep :rolleyes:

I check back in my morning

K

Fog came in.
I'll try in November.

Ah, well, that's the way it goes sometimes. :(

Seeing really gets bad for me in the next two. November, and December are my two most cloudy Months.

In case you would ever see a fireball (Meteor) You can report it here:
AMS Fireball Monitoring Program (http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireballs.html)

It's not for general showers like the Orionids, unless there would be an exceptional display of a singular nature.

K

I have seen bolides!

The most spectacular fireball I ever saw was a reentering Soviet rocket, which I saw while camping with friends at 10,000 feet. Wow.

A couple of Vandenberg rockets.

I will keep in mind the fireball monitoring program if I seen another. I'd have to take up camping or stargazing again. I live in northern California and report all our earthquakes to the USGS's "did you feel it? (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/dyfi/)" website.

I was able to report my first one to AMS last year in August 08


If your interested in Satellite sightings try this:
Heavens-Above Home Page Redding Ca. (http://www.heavens-above.com/?Loc=Redding&Lat=40.587&Lng=-122.391&Alt=183&TZ=PST)

You can adjust the sighting location if Redding is too far from you. An advantage to having a more precise location is the site can give better sighting times.

You can search H/A's database of towns or you can also edit your location manually, with your Earth co-ordinates.

This page offers a list of ISS - Visible Passes (http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=40.587&lng=-122.391&loc=Redding&alt=183&tz=PST) as you go over the dates, take notice of the center column in the Max. Alt. table, the higher the value, the more directly overhead the ISS will be.

Click on 23OCT. Then on click here to the right of the flashing new sign, the ISS is almost out of the viewing circle.

Now, Click on 28OCT then click here... See the difference?

I started using H/A to hunt down Iridium flares, and check it regularly for the ISS

If you can use the USGS site, it shouldn't take you long to master this.
When you get on the visible passes page, and go to the Ground Track Plot, navigation is a matter of using the back button. :)

k

I'm laying on the beach in gulf shores Alabama with a blanket and my girlfriend ;)

Hope you are having fun and seeing lots of shooting stars. It's socked in here in Northern California.

Thought I'd check this out... Didn't receive a script notice.

Saw one meteor at 4:12am on the morning of the 17th. The clouds rolled in, and the next morn, was also socked. :(

I'da loved to of seen this Willamette, Oregon Meteorite commin' in! :eek:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_80cGISOzOds/SwjNdsYPoZI/AAAAAAAABTo/Lt-y7urMJps/s800/250px-Willamette_Meteorite_AMNH.jpg

Willamette Meteorite - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Meteorite)

Holy cow! Now, that's a meteorite!

Do people ever get hit by these things? Or can you see it coming and run out of its path?

I saw one good one about 4 in the morning on the 18th. Out the window from my bed. I meant to get up.. . But I fell back to sleep and the next thing I knew it was daylight. :o

... snckkk

Holy cow! Now, that's a meteorite!

Do people ever get hit by these things? Or can you see it coming and run out of its path?Sure do, in the last 233years or so there have been 14 instances were people have been struck, but not killed Meteorite Hits Page (http://imca.repetti.net/metinfo/metstruck.html)
Most though have been animals, cars or buildings most recently: CBC News - Toronto - S. Ontario meteorite fragment hit SUV (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/10/16/tech-meteorite-ontario-found.html)

I would think it happens so fast, you would have no time to react. There's this case this past summer:
14-year-old hit by 30,000 mph space meteorite - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/5511619/14-year-old-hit-by-30000-mph-space-meteorite.html)

But this site isn't so sure 'bout it, read below the DoD story:
Meteors in the News – DoD Classifies Fireball Data and Boy Gets Hit By Meteorite The Transient Sky – Comets, Asteroids, Meteors (http://transientsky.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/meteors-in-the-news-dod-classifies-fireball-data-and-boy-gets-hit-by-meteorite/)


I saw one good one about 4 in the morning on the 18th. Out the window from my bed. I meant to get up . . . but I fell back to sleep and the next thing I knew it was daylight. :o

...snckkkI know of what you are saying. It was much easier for me back before my retirement.
I worked nights, and was usually home by 4 in the morning, and I would stay out until dawn.


On a lighter note, Have you heard?
SPACE.com -- It's a Girl! Astronaut's Daughter Born While He's in Space (http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/091121-sts129-bresnik-baby-born.html)

Woa! That meteorite seems to be metallic... :cool:

I wonder in which direction you have to run if you see a meteorite coming towards you... perhaps left or right is the best way... :confused:

I would run towards it so it will overshoot. :D

If it were me... I would fear that my estimation of the impact of the meteorite would not be good. If that turns to be an overestimate, it would be difficult not to get hit. So, left or right I'd move.

I was kind of joking.

As far as left or right, it would depend on the terrain. But in either case, don't spend a lot of time thinking about it!

Lol, right :)

KUXJ,
I really enjoyed reading some of your links today. I was working on a boring project and it was nice to have some entertainment when I needed a break.

Your welcome asking.
More's the pity that we can not sidestep our obligations, like we can meteorite's.