This first weekend of November, 2012, offers a meteor shower, although moonlight will interfere. The South Taurid meteors are expected to be at their best late night on Sunday, November 4 and after midnight on Monday, November 5. But we’ve already been hearing from people who say they’ve seen meteors, or shooting stars, streaking along in dark skies. Watch for them if you’re outside.Last night, I saw a large shooting star, gold mixed with other colors as it burned out, one of the nicest I can remember. The meteor had a definite ball on the end, and though it was there and gone in the blink of an eye, I didn't blink, and it was lovely to see. I looked around for pictures, but I found none to match my shooting star, which moved in an arc as it petered out. Here we have so much light pollution that we see only a very few stars, so the meteor really stood out against the dark sky. So swept away was I by the magical moment that I forgot to make a wish.
When I was a child, we spread a blanket in the back yard and lay down to watch the meteor showers when we knew they were coming, but there was less light then, even in the city, and, here and now, we don't see nearly the number of stars and meteors we saw those many years ago.
UPDATE: Good thing I saw my shooting star last night, because not a star of any kind was to be seen tonight, because clouds covered the sky.
oooo --I will try to see one tonight. Out here on the prairie, just outside of town, the stars alone make me stop and gape in wonder. I'm hoping our cloud cover will clear for a bit, and let us see a falling star....
ReplyDeletemargaret, I envy you that you can see the stars. I've caught glimpses of what we can't see here in other places without light pollution, and each time the sight takes my breath away.
DeleteMy inner children (there are several), ever playful and with a tendency to the phonetic, read this as a gracious introduction, "Oh, my, Southern Torrid, meet Eyor," and then race giggling out to the balcony to search for stars arranging themselves in cartoon shapes and will not hear any of the talk that light reaching us from so far away may, at its source, already be extinguished ... will only hear that the stars are there, ever, even in the daylight when our feeble eyes cannot distinguish their light from that of the sun ... oooooh, we do so love our stars.
ReplyDeleteMarthe, the nights lying on the blankets watching the shooting stars were magical. Yes, just because we don't see the stars, doesn't mean they're not there.
DeleteSounds beautiful. I can't remember when I last saw a shooting star. You don't see too much by way of stars in London, that's for sure :( At least we don't get the pea soupers any more, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteCathy, I saw another not too long ago, maybe back in the August shower, but it was smaller with a much shorter tail and no color.
DeleteAs much as I hate to brag, I see them quite regularly, but then as an amateur astronomer I do spend a lot of time looking at the night sky. I still find it amazing that those miles-long tails are caused by something as small and insignificant as a piece of dust no bigger than a grain of salt. Even the one you mention in the OP would in all probality have been a rocky fragment no bigger than a golf ball, and the variation in colour was caused by the different elemental particles burning up; if memory serves, copper burns green, iron is red/gold,* sulphur burns yellow, and so on.
Delete*so yours was a mainly iron meteor and being part of a regular annual meteor shower would once have been part of a comet whose orbit took it across ours.
No bigger than a grain of salt? I did not know some were that tiny. I only watch the sky when I'm out at night walking my dog.
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