Night Sky Astronomy

Posts Tagged ‘meteors’

My final night trying to spot the Lyrids Meteor shower was a couple of nights ago, when it was at its peak. This time I did manage to see some meteors! Yay! But only three, which was a shame. I was outside for almost an hour as well, so I was expecting to see a few more to be honest with you.

The three I did see were pretty good though. The first one was really bright and quite big seeming, and it shot along the sky just under the shining Jupiter. It left a nice trail behind it, which lasted a couple of seconds, and the way it went just below Jupiter made it an awesome sight. The other two meteors were literally one after each other, with only about 1 second between them, if that. They were in a different area of the sky and were quite dull compared to the first one. But, as they whizzed past almost at the same time and in the same place, that made it really interesting for me. I had never seen two meteors in such close proximity like that before.

Other than the meteors, I managed to see ten satellites go over and 6 planes fly over Plymouth. I never knew there were so many planes flying over Plymouth each night! The satellites were mostly the usual bright spot, tracking along the sky, but this time I saw two of them basically following each other. It looked as though they were in the same orbit and travelling at the same speeds, which I hadn’t seen before. I found it quite interesting following them passing over our house.

So all in all, it wasn’t a good few days of meteor spotting. In fact, I usually see more meteors than I did, when there isn’t a meteor shower due!  Hopefully, the skies will remain clear for the next meteor shower which will be the Eta Aquarids in early May, but this year isn’t going to be a good year to see them due to the size and brightness of the moon. Oh well!

Last night I went out to try and find some meteors as it was a beautiful night.  It was clear as a bell and the stars were twinkling away above me!

I must have spent a good hour or so outside the back of my house, from about 9:15 until 10:15, but as the days are getting longer now, it didn’t get fully dark until nearer the time I went in. Because of this, I didn’t actually see any meteors, but did see a record for me of 7 satellites and 3 planes. The ISS was due to fly over as well, but I must have missed that unfortunately.

A couple of nights ago, I was outside for only 10 minutes and I managed to see 3 satellites and a really bright meteor shoot overhead, so it shows how random these meteors are.

The Lyrid Meteor shower of 2015 isn’t due to reach its peak until tomorrow night (22nd April), so I am hoping that whilst the weather lasts, I will try again tonight and tomorrow and see what I can see. Hopefully, a few more meteors will shoot over our house in the next couple of days, as it really is an astonishing spectacle!

Over the weekend was the peak of the annual Geminid Meteor Shower.  This year, it was actually clear skies over our house meaning the sky was perfectly clear. In fact, it was the best clear sky that we have had for a very long time! There was no moon and the stars and constellations were twinkling beautifully in the night sky.  Of course, being this time of year, it meant the clear sky made the temperature absolutely freezing! In fact, it was minus 1.2 by 22:30 so we were quite chilly stood outside!

My wife and I went out to look on two occasions in the evening. The first viewing lasted for about 45 minutes, starting at about 19:45 on Saturday. I was out on my own at first but didn’t see any meteors until my wife made an appearance, which was about 20 minutes in to the viewing. I did have a great time using my camera to try and take photos of the constellation Cassiopeia and the Pleiades but unfortunately my lens wasn’t big enough, so all I took was darkness. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings on where the meteors would originate from, but found that it was directly behind our house.  This meant we could stand on the back step and be looking in the correct direction. The only problem with this was that there is a big house directly behind ours, which blocks out the sky. This meant that we had to look directly up, which gave me neck ache the next day!

Anyway, the first viewing picked up and we eventually saw about 8 meteors. Some were very small flashes in the Sky, whilst others zoomed along and left a nice long tail behind.  It was great, but we eventually got so cold that we had to go in and have a hot chocolate to drink!

We went back outside at about 10pm for about 30 minutes, by which time the rate of meteors passing by must have picked up as we were treated to some really good ones that shot across the sky and had some amazing tails. The origin of the meteors had passed to the side of the house behind us as well, so we had a clearer view of Gemini by then. I have to say that the constellation Orion looked excellent and very bright as well, which was to the south east of Gemini. At one point we must have seen about 3 big meteors in the space of about 15 seconds, and they were all over the sky.  It was great! But, as mentioned above, the temperature had reached sub zero levels by now, and we were just too cold, so we called it a night. In this time we saw about 10 really good meteors, which was very pleasing.

The Geminid Meteor Shower of 2014 was probably the best one that we have seen from our house in Plymouth. The moon was down, the sky was dark and the starts shone so brightly. It was an amazing sight, and to see lots of meteors as well topped it of brilliantly! Here’s hoping for more nights like this when future meteor showers are due! 😉

For the Lyrids Meteor Shower this year, the Moon is going to keep the sky quite light, which will make it much harder to see them.  Saying that, it should still be possible, especially when they are at their peak on the 23rd April.  I say this as I happened to be outside this past Tuesday night, watching the ISS fly over Plymouth, and to my surprise, whilst it was moving through Ursa Major (specifically the Plough part of the constellation), there were 5 or 6 tiny little explosions going off in the sky nearby.  I couldn’t quite believe it really and it put me off watching the ISS (which I always find fascinating!).

I watched for several more minutes and saw several other meteors in the sky, in the general area of the sky off to the left of Ursa Major.  These were not massive meteors as far as I could tell, as you only saw them for a split second, but this was probably due to the almost full moon which was keeping the sky bright and hiding all but the most brightest stars.  These weren’t like the tiny explosions I saw during the ISS flyover, but more meteor like.  I can only presume these were the Lyrids and the first batch I saw were so small and didn’t ‘shoot across the sky’ but burnt up as soon as they hit the atmosphere of the Earth.  The second batch must have been slightly bigger and lasted longer when hitting the atmosphere.  Either way, it was great viewing!

Earth and a Lyrid Meteor taken by Astronaut Don Pettit. Copyright Nasa.

The Lyrids Meteors emanate from the constellation Lyra (hence their name) and they are part of the comet Thatcher that takes about 415 years to orbit the Sun.  The peak of the shower is usually around the 21st to the 24th of April but they can be seen for several days before and after, depending on how lucky you are!  I guess I was very lucky the other night!

Enjoy the Lyrids Meteor Gazing!! 😉

For those of you who are very early risers in the morning, the Eta Aquarids Meteor Shower is for you! Unfortunately, for those of us who can’t get up in the morning we will probably miss this shower, as the best time to view these meteors is in the couple of hours before dawn. This is when the radiant of the meteor shower comes over our horizion in the Northern Hemisphere.

The good thing about this meteor shower is that you can see the meteors several days before the peak, which is on May 5th, and then for several days after. I believe the full timescale is from the 19th April until the 28th May, so they can be seen for over a month, if you are willing to get up in the morning!  The number of meteors that should be seen each hour could peak at about 70 per hour if you are lucky, but you are more likely to see around 10-20 per hour in the Northern Hemisphere, with each meteor travelling at approx 66km/s.  This year is actually a very good year to view the Eta Aquarids as the moon is only a waning crescent so will not make the sky too bright.

This meteor shower is called the Eta Aquarids as the radiant of the shower looks to emanate from the star Eta in the constellation of Aquarius. Aquarius is also known as the ‘Water Bearer’ and is shown in the image below.  The meteors from this shower are actually dust and debris left behind from Halleys Comet, with this shower coming about due to the Earth passing through this orbital path of the Comet and thus ploughing straight through the path of debris

The Constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer