Death from above
Well, not really. Tomorrow morning, if you look to the Northeast before sunrise, you should be able to see the Perseid Meteor Shower. Sadly, the peak of the shower will happen during the day, so best viewing is Friday and Saturday morning before the sun comes up. Meteor counts in a dark sky should be on the order of 50-60 per hour.
There is very, very little chance that any of these will bean you on the head, since they are typically no bigger than a marble and have the consistency of cigar ash and burn up in the upper atmosphere.
Posted by
Buckethead
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Dude,
Dude,
wtf are you doing up before sunrise? Unless, of course, you're just getting home.
Unless it's a Lucifer's Hammer-scale event, I doubt I'll go out of my way for it.
A few years ago the Leonid
A few years ago the Leonid shower was supposed to make a huge show over the Northeastern United States at a not-insane hour (e.g. 2 AM) on a weekend. Me n the wife went out on the wharf (which extendss a half mile out in the water) where there are few lights and lay on our backs, checking things out.
I gotta say, there were no Luicifer's Hammer type events in evidence that night, but it was an experience I will never forget. There must have been five or six bright flares a minute at some points.
Totally worth doing once.
J,
J,
Granted, granted.
IF I don't have to be up at a ridiculous hour, put something on over my foundation undergarments, and shuffle out-of-doors into the dark, I'm there.
Around here, I prefer the night sky in the dread grip of winter. Razor sharp details then, and I don't have to share the optics with anyone because no other well-adjusted person is lingering outside one second longer than they must.
I'm not an expert, but in my limited experience with things cosmic the desert provided a truly awesome night-viewing experience. My myopic and unaided eyes saw more in 20 minutes of paying casual attention than I had in my life to that point.
It really is amazing what you
It really is amazing what you can see when you get away from light pollution. Once, Mrs. Buckethead and I were driving to Texas and in the middle of the night in the middle of a huge national park in Tennessee, I happened to glance up. I'd never seen the Milky Way except when I went out west. I pulled over, and woke a protesting and sleepy Mrs. Buckethead up. She kept demanding, "What?" I just told her to get out of the car and look up.
Relatively high up, and far from any cities, the view was better than any I've seen short of the mountains of New Mexico.