Leonids 2007

[ancientsong]

I just checked on the Leonids for this year and they will be at peak in the early morning hours (after midnight) on November 18th (Saturday night and into Sunday morning

Comments

[shadowcaptain]

word.

[saw what may have been a stray taurid earlier this evening while on comet patrol, a gentle horizontal sweep across a good fifty degrees or so of sky. possibly the most spielberg-esque shooting star i've ever seen. and i also saw either a meteor or a satellite zipping across the field of view THROUGH THE TELESCOPE for the first time ever, which was ridiculously exciting.]

[ancientsong]

Awesome!

I need me a telescope. I have binocs but they aren't so good for some of the things I'd like to see.

Alas, other things take priority.

[slightlymadmom]

I keep forgetting about the various meteorite showers until after they are done. Thanks for the heads up, I have no idea what I will be able to do, but hopefully I can at least look outside. The sky in Rockville has lots of light noise, but I have seen some of the shooting stars before (woken up at 3 am by a water main break once!).

[ancientsong]

Yeah, Rockville might provide a challenge for star/meteor gazing.

But hey it's great that you've seen some!

[webmonkeyjr]

I'd like to learn about this... where do I find info?

[ancientsong]

I'm not sure exactly what you want to learn more about but here are some websites to peruse.

This is the Naval Observatory site for sunrise/set moonrise/set.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php

This is StarDate online (weekly stargazing tips)
http://stardate.org/nightsky/weekly.php

Space.com has all sorts of space news and night sky updates
http://www.space.com/nightsky/

This is the NASA Astronomy Pic of the Day archive
Very cool pics of the day with explanations of what you're seeing
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

And here is the StarDate online meteor shower page.
http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors/