The Perseids - Don't Forget to Look Up!

henry

The Cosmic Force
Late Monday night and early Tuesday morning are the height of this year's Perseids.

Don't forget to look up... It'll give you a few more seconds to run. :lol:
 
Coincidence?


Space Weather:
August 8, 2008 -- 1600UT Update -- A primary SWPC data ingest system failed August 7, at 2200UT. The following data streams are not available: Planetary Geomagnetic indices; POES satellite; USTEC GPS stations. Efforts to resolve the problem continues, but may take several days. All Web and FTP products that can be generated without the missing data are being updated routinely.


Data Ingest System:

The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) is dedicated toward making value-added data available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) Global Systems Division (GSD) (formerly the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL)) for the purpose of improving weather forecasting, by providing support for data assimilation, numerical weather prediction, and other hydrometeorological applications.
_http://madis.noaa.gov/


POES: Polar Orbiting Satellites

The POES satellite system offers the advantage of daily global coverage, by making nearly polar orbits roughly 14.1 times daily. Since the number of orbits per day is not an integer the sub orbital tracks do not repeat on a daily basis, although the local solar time of each satellite's passage is essentially unchanged for any latitude. Currently in orbit we have a morning and afternoon satellite, which provide global coverage four times daily. The POES system includes the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Tiros Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS).

Because of the polar orbiting nature of the POES series satellites, these satellites are able to collect global data on a daily basis for a variety of land, ocean, and atmospheric applications. Data from the POES series supports a broad range of environmental monitoring applications including weather analysis and forecasting, climate research and prediction, global sea surface temperature measurements, atmospheric soundings of temperature and humidity, ocean dynamics research, volcanic eruption monitoring, forest fire detection, global vegetation analysis, search and rescue, and many other applications.
_http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poes/


USTEC GPS stations: {Abstract) The potential of data assimilation for operational numerical weather forecasting has been appreciated for many years. For space weather it is a new path that we are just beginning to explore. With the emergence of satellite constellations and the networks of ground-based observations, sufficient data sources are now available to make the application of data assimilation techniques a viable option. {snip]...This is the first step along a path that will likely lead to major improvement in space weather forecasting, paralleling the advances achieved in meteorological weather forecasting. _http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005RS003393.shtml

Duck :cool2:
 
some friends and i camped out on the coast of Lake Superior last night to watch the Perseids, and they were quite something... a few of them really ripped across the night sky and left huge trails that hung for four/five seconds... the sky was also rather busy with satellites, and a few other things that, well, didn't quite seem like satellites...

did anyone else get the chance to watch the show?
 
JonnyRadar said:
did anyone else get the chance to watch the show?


I stood awake for it and one our before the show was up to begin (about 1 o'clock in Europe) a thunderstorm came by and with it long lasting rainy clouds. :(
 
Nothing around here in Buenos Aires, very cloudy weather. What a shame! :(
Someone took pictures?
 
This article might be relevant:

Canada probes mysterious Arctic blast


Yellowknife, Northwest Territories - Reports of a large, smoky explosion that allegedly killed several whales in Canadian Arctic waters is being investigated by the military.

The mystery began July 31 when Inuit hunters at the top of Baffin Island reported the blast, followed by a cloud of black smoke and several dead beached whales, the Canwest News Service reported. Soon after, a member of the aboriginal military reservist Canadian Rangers made a similar report.

The Defense Department said none of its vessels were in the area, although cruise ships, cargo ships and supply vessels use the waters between July and September, the report said.

The military said it was dispatching a long-range Aurora aircraft over the area to search for clues as to the source of the explosion. In addition, the federal Parks Canada agency dispatched a ship as part of the investigation, the report said.

Keith Pelley, a Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokesman in Nunavut, said he wouldn't comment on the possibility of a foreign submarine in Canadian waters.

"Until we hear from Parks Canada and the military, there's nothing we can confirm or deny," he told the news service.
 
Alas, very cloudy weather and rain 2 days in row made the Perseids not visible in the south of the Netherlands. Did anybody make pictures? Ooo~~~~ Ooo~~~~ Ooo~~~~
btw I like this calendar feature! :cool2:
 
I stood outside last night about 12 o'clock after some heavy rainfall, and spent an hour or so looking at the sky. I saw 8 meteorites, ranging from fast little ones flashing quickly through the sky to larger ones that left an orange glowing trail that then faded out in about a second. Never saw that before, quite spectacular. And a bit scary if you think about it. Location: near Nijmegen, Netherlands.
 
Snow said:
Did anybody make pictures?

well i don't have high-quality equipment that will take good pictures of the night sky, but i found this photo online and it's the best comparison, imo, to some of the larger ones that we saw. there were also a few really spectacular specimens that left thick trails, or sort of "popped" after they burned out... i wish i'd been able to get pictures of those...

meteor1.jpg
 
Hi,
I just would like remind that the earth is currently "running" through the Perseid swarm and maybe worth watching the night-sky in the next days (especially for the northern hemisphere inhabitants). The climax should be around the 12th of august.
And hopefully this year are also less clouds in the sky. ;)
 
Thanks for the heads up, abcdefghiJoerg! Although they predict cloudy weather and a bit of rain here in the Netherlands, I am carefully optimistic I'll see a shooting star or two :)

12/08/09: I caught a few last night, but not really spectacular. Hopefully, tonight will be more of a show (and no clouds to ruin my view)






-edit: added my stargazing from last night.
 
It's that time of the year again!

See this article if you want to know when and where to look. I was up late last night, sitting in a relaxed chair in my garden of which I had adjusted the back so I was almost lying horizontally. I was doing EE for half an hour whilst looking to the sky and I spotted two! Both left a small glowing trail for about half a second. I hope I'll be able to spot more of them in the upcoming nights. At least the weather predictions say we're going to have another clear night tonight here in Holland!
:D

This image may come in handy too, as it shows the radiant right below Cassiopaea, a constellation which I find easy to locate: _http://www.jodrellbank.manchester.ac.uk/astronomy/nightsky/Perseids3.jpg
 
Snow said:
Alas, very cloudy weather and rain 2 days in row made the Perseids not visible in the south of the Netherlands. Did anybody make pictures? Ooo~~~~ Ooo~~~~ Ooo~~~~
btw I like this calendar feature! :cool2:

:( There was a lot of rain all the weekend so can not see it either !!!! :/
 
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