[CAT] Scratching Post

Venus was fucking unbearably bright on friday. It was absolutely mental. It was also directly above the moon which looked amazing.

Yeah, Venus is unbelievably brilliant at times. If you check it out in binoc or a telescope, you'll notice that it goes through phases like the moon.

My parents were in Flo_rida for my dad's birthday. They called me to ask WTF was going on in the western sky. It was Venus, but my mom thought it was a UFO. My dad said "you have nothing to worry about...unless Fox Mulder shows up."

My mother wasn't very pleased with him.

Big picture is big, so I'll just link it.

Two Crescents

DickSchittlippz wrote:Perseids. Usually around 12-13 August.

I saw these are coming back. There was some watching party by the local astronomy group last night for it though it was really cloudy. I read it won't peak until the 11/12 this year. Hopefully it won't be murky those nights..

It's a bit early for a Perseids party. You can see Perseids now, sure, but the ZHR is only 20, meaning you'd only see 20 meteors and hour if the radiant (in Perseus) was at the zenith and there was no interference from the moon. Right now, the moon is near full, so the chances of seeing more than a meteor or two and hour are not great.

Ya, I didn't bother going out there. I think they just did it because it was a friday and they were hoping for a better turnout than what would be there on tuesday.

And its looking like the moon will be up all night even next week, so maybe no perseids this year.

Well, the moon will only be 55% full for the peak, but it will be close to the radiant and a lot of the fainter meteors will be washed out.

So the weirdest thing happened. Was at the atmosphere/E&A show tonight. It was outdoors at a bar in town. But during the last set, i managed to see a perseid. It streaked across the sky right above the stage. Must have been bright given i saw it while inside the city even.

Gonna try to go out tomorrow evening too.

Recent planetary crash:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8195467.stm

Perseid are go tonight:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8193769.stm

Saw it last year was good, tricky to avoid the light pollution though. Also, this year we have a pretty full moon.

If you missed the Perseids, don't fret:
"On Nov. 17, 2009, we expect the Leonids to produce upwards of 500 meteors per hour," says Bill Cooke of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "That's a very strong display."

I saw the 2001 Leonid outburst from a dark sky location in the boonies. There were bright meteors every 60-90 seconds, and a handful of outbursts where 2-3 meteors were visible at a time.

I heard the perseids were pretty heavy, nice that the next one will be too.

Will have to head out, i hope it isn't too cold by then.

Too cold?! How sucky can SD be??

Man I wish I had read this yesterday. Oh well.

Our winters have been fucked up lately. By thanksgiving a few years back, we were still in shorts playing disc golf. Another year, there was two feet of snow on the ground. Results may vary.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8246556.stm

New Hubble pics

I wish the pic of Stephan's Quintet could be enlarged.