this weekend..meteors - orionids

[sky otter]

out come those zero gravity chairs and the warm sleeping bags...here's hoping for no clouds

Meteor Shower Created by Halley's Comet Peaks This Week
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior WriterDate: 16 October 2012 Time: 09:00 AM ET

A meteor shower spawned by history's most famous comet will peak this weekend, and the show could be dazzling for observers with clear skies, experts say.

The Orionid meteor shower will reach its zenith overnight from Saturday to Sunday (Oct. 20-21) as Earth plows through debris shed by Halley's Comet on its path around the sun. The most impressive display should come a few hours before dawn Sunday, when our planet hits the densest patch of Halley's detritus.

"Flakes of comet dust hitting the atmosphere should give us dozens of meteors per hour," Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said in a statement.





The moon will be just five days removed from its new phase on Saturday night, and it won't show up in the pre-dawn skies early Sunday. So bright moonlight shouldn't drown out many streaking meteors this weekend, researchers said.

The Orionids — so named because they appear to originate near Betelgeuse, the second-brightest star in the constellation Orion (The Hunter) — have historically produced about 20 meteors per hour during their peak. However, the shower has been especially impressive in the last half-decade or so, Cooke said.

"Since 2006, the Orionids have been one of the best showers of the year, with counts of 60 or more meteors per hour," he said.

Skywatchers who want to learn more about the Orionids and how to observe them this weekend can join Cooke and his team in a live web chat overnight Saturday, from 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. EDT (0300 to 0700 GMT Sunday). Go to this web page at the appointed time to participate.

The Orionids are one of two annual meteor showers produced by icy pieces of Halley's Comet. The other shower, called the Eta Aquarids, peaks each year in early May.


Meteor Shower Mania: How Well Do You Know 'Shooting...Meteor showers can be awesome night sky sights, but how well do you know your shooting star facts? Find out here and good luck! 0 of 10 questions completeMeteor Shower Mania: How Well Do You Know 'Shooting...Meteor showers can be awesome night sky sights, but how well do you know your shooting star facts? Find out here and good luck!  0 of 10 questions complete Start Over | More Quizzes
Halley's Comet returns to the inner solar system every 75 or 76 years, and it's bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. The comet's last appearance in our skies came in 1986, and the next is due in 2061.

In 1705, English astronomer Edmond Halley suggested that a comet spotted 1682 was the same one that lit up the sky in both 1531 and 1607. He further predicted it would be back in 1758. When this last appearance did in fact come to pass, the comet was given Halley's name.

Editor's Note: If you snapped any photos of the Orionid meteor shower and want to share them with SPACE.com, send the pictures, comments and location info to managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

•Halley's Comet's Yearly Attack on Earth - How to Watch | Video
•2011 Orionid Meteor Shower Photos by Skywatchers
•Photos of Halley's Comet Through History
inShare.3ABOUT THE AUTHOR

http://www.space.com/18078-orionid-meteor-shower-halleys-comet.html

[sky otter]

http://spaceweather.com/

ORIONID METEOR SHOWER--TODAY! Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley's Comet, source of the annual Orionid meteor shower. Forecasters expect ~25 meteors per hour when the shower peaks on Oct. 21st. No matter where you live, the best time to look is during the dark hours before sunrise on Sunday morning. Observers in both hemispheres can see this shower. [video] [full story] [NASA Chat] [meteor radar] [sky map]

On Oct. 19th, as Earth was making first contact with the debris stream, NASA's All-sky Fireball Network recorded 10 Orionid fireballs over the southern USA. Their orbits are color-coded baby blue in the diagram below:



The location of Earth, where all the orbits intersect, is denoted by the red 'splat.'

Not every orbit in the diagram is an Orionid. The orange and green ellipses correspond to random meteors not associated with Halley's debris stream. If you watch the sky for a few hours on Sunday morning, you are likely to see a few of these 'sporadic meteors' among the dozens of Orionids. Happy meteor watching!

Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery

METEOR MAKES LANDFALL: A small asteroid that exploded over the San Francisco Bay Area on Oct. 17th, shaking houses with its sonic boom, might have scattered pieces of itself on the ground. That's the conclusion of Peter Jenniskens of the NASA Ames Research Center. He triangulated data from a pair of meteor surveillance cameras to determine the fireball's trajectory, denoted by the black arrow in the map below:





"The asteroid entered at a [relatively slow] speed of 14 km/s. There's a good chance that a fairly large fraction of this rock survived and fell somewhere around the North Bay," says Jenniskens. "Much more accurate results will follow from a comprehensive study of the video records. Now, we hope that someone recovers a meteorite on the ground."

In the map, red dots represent the surveillance cameras Jenniskens used to calculate the trajectory. The black arrow traces the asteroid's path; 85 km and 39 km are the altitudes of the asteroid at the two ends of the arrow. Jenniskens adds that "39 km is not the end point, but the final bit captured by the San Mateo video camera." The disintegrating asteroid continued beyond the tip of the arrow for a possible landfall somewhere north of San Francisco. Stay tuned for updates on the meteorite hunt.

Note: This was not an Orionid.

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meteor surveillance cameras
http://cams.seti.org/

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Realtime Meteor Photo Gallery
http://spaceweather.com/gallery/index.php?title=meteor

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NASA's All Sky Fireball Network
http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/

[zorgon]

out come those zero gravity chairs and the warm sleeping bags...here's hoping for no clouds

Pay SPECIAL attention to the ones that change direction

[Shasta56]

I might try looking tonight, depending on cloud cover and my personal eyelid cover.  I'm on my second 12 hour shift of four in a row.  Sleep may take priority.

Shasta