Meteor Showers Aint What They Cracked Up To Be
With expectations for one of the year's biggest meteor showers, I was excited at the chance to cross another item off my list. Through the wonder of Facebook, I heard that the annual Leonid Meteor Shower would be in full effect on the late night of Monday November 16th. As it turns out, I am awake at 3 am almost everyday anyway so it seemed like everything would be good to go.
In an attempt to provide some educational information, I guess I'll provide a little background on this supposed high-frequency shower. All of this info is from other websites but since nobody is grading this blog entry I'll just steal it and use it as my own :)
Background Info
Most of the shooting stars in the annual Leonid meteor shower are the result of tiny bits of material, the size of sand grains or peas, blown off a comet and wafting through space for centuries. The Leonids are spawned by the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Every 33 years, it rounds the Sun and then goes back to the outer solar system. On each passage across Earth's orbit, Tempel-Tuttle lays down another trail of debris, each in a slightly different location than previous trails. Over time, the debris trails spread out. Each year, Earth passes through different streams, and different parts of the streams, creating bursts of activity and slack periods in the nights surrounding the event's peak.
And as a result, you get this!!!
NASA predicted that we'd see 20 - 30 meteors per hour this year....
As I walked out my door late Monday night and found the darkest spot around, I expected to look up and enjoy these 20-30 meteors. Instead, the whole time I was outside I saw a whopping total of.............one meteor.
I probably stared up at the sky for an hour, saw the one bright meteor and went back inside dejected. I went outside a few more times before the night was over and had a few "Oh maybe that was one but it could've just been a twinkling star" moments but that was it.
As much as I'd like the pictures above to be ones that I took on the night of the shower, I sadly didn't have the camera, the skills, or the view to achieve such a feat. The ones below are the actual results:
A slightly blurry picture of a motionless sky...
Me laying on the ground, looking at said motionless sky...
Overall, my experience with the meteors was a tad disappointing but I guess it was enough to cross it off my list. I'll be sure to keep my eye out in the future for opportunities to catch a better glimpse of the elusive meteor shower...
Try to be in Santa Barbara for the next one. The first and second pictures you posted are pretty much what the sky looked like from where I was lying.
ReplyDeleteP.S. The first & second pictures are great, but the last one is my fave :)
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