Toadfish Monastery

I don't know if it will be visible from the UK, even if the weather is OK.  But I'll dust off the trusty welding mask in case.

Quote from: Sibling DavidH on May 29, 2012, 08:29:31 PM
I don't know if it will be visible from the UK, even if the weather is OK.  But I'll dust off the trusty welding mask in case.

I happen to know where I can acquire one of those too. Hmmm, I have a cunning plan.

From yet another Astronomy Toadfish Nerd.

I heard about this from a spiritual friend. In some circles this is known as the Occultation(?) of Venus and is seen as a new beginning for humankind. There will be some pretty Twinkie celebrations going on as well as astronomy nerd activities.

Look for shooting stars tonight!

It's the annual Perseids meteor shower!

I hope I'll be able to stay up after 11 pm tonight, which is when we should be able to see some of them around these parts.

I'll have to keep an eye out...  I might be joining in with a bicycle pub crawl tonight (mostly cruiser bikes, but I think they'll let me tag along on my old beater Norco).

Hmm... perhaps I should get out for a night kayak on Sunday night, and see them from the water.

Dang!  6pm here, and it's clouding over.

Quote from: Aggie... perhaps I should get out for a night kayak on Sunday night...

Ah, if only ...

For the Yurpeens - We have low, thin cloud cover here! I suppose this forces me to stay up for another couple of hours?

We couldn't see any.  Just that bit too cloudy, as usual.

Although the sky was clear for the most part* I did not consciously spot any. I sat for a bout a quarter of an hour on the balcony but they sky in the city is simply too bright. I could spot stars but it took too much effort to focus on any individual to make out constellations (and with binoculars the field of view is too small and I can't hold them steadily enough anyway). I think I saw one or two satellites passing.

*a novelty. Usually anything astronomical happening guarantees cloud cover

We had a nice barbecue on the back patio last night with the intention of staying up to watch. It was Mr. Ops' last vacation night and he merrily drank too many beers and fell asleep by 9 pm. Th'opsalette and I stayed out and around 9:30 under partly cloudy skies she spotted one to the north. About five minutes later we both saw a small fireball streak from north to northwest with a nice misty train. Great! We watched for about an hour until the sky went overcast. She saw six in all, and I saw three. The little fireball ruled, though.

There's another chance to see them tonight or tomorrow before sunrise.

No night cloud cover for ages, or nothing to worry about, and then it all comes on the few nights I don't want it to.

Glad you saw them, Opsa.  We'll try for the third time tonight.

Any luck?

Usually we have that old summer dusk haze problem, but this year it just happened to clear out for a short while.

There's almost always meteors available, according to this chart, but most are faint or sparse. The next biggie is the Geminids in early December.

Perseids - Warm nights, too overcast.

Gemenids - Freezing cold, clear as crystal.

Murphy has an awful lot to answer for.

We got the Draconids this weekend. According to EarthSky:

"October 7, 2012 Draconids
The radiant point for the Draconid meteor shower almost coincides with the head of the constellation Draco the Dragon in the northern sky. That's why the Draconids are best viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. The Draconid shower is a real oddity, in that the radiant point stands highest in the sky as darkness falls. Unlike many meteor showers, the Draconids are more likely to fly in the evening hours than in the morning hours after midnight. This shower is usually a sleeper, producing only a handful of languid meteors per hour in most years. But watch out if the Dragon awakes! In rare instances, fiery Draco has been known to spew forth many hundreds of meteors in a single hour. With no moon to interfere during the evening hours, try watching at nightfall and early evening on October 7 and 8. "

The next ones are the Orionids around Oct 21.