the sky & beyond: comet 3/31 to 6/2

[Lemon Cheesecake]

I wonder if prices for star trek themed items will go up in price because of their 50th anniversary this year?

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Track the Space station and see if it is flying over you:

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

it seems to travel faster then I would have thought, I guess blink and you'd almost miss it going by!

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Perseid Meteor shower peaks this Friday, "Scientists call this an outburst, and they say it could reach up to 200 meteors per hour."

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Solar eclipse today: remember NOT to look at the sun directly

"Oregon is the first state visited by the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. Totality first touches the US at 10:15 a.m. at Yaquina Head, Oregon"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wyoming-mar ... r-eclipse/

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Rare double eclipse was on Friday 9/2 - NASA spacecraft caught it on video

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/09/ ... video.html

"The space agency said early Friday morning Earth completely eclipsed the sun from the satellite’s perspective just as the moon began its journey across the face of the sun."

[Lemon Cheesecake]

September 16 is the Harvest Moon!

"As the Moon rises, we peer through hundreds of miles of the lower atmosphere, where the air is densest and dustiest. Aerosols scatter much of the blues and greens in moonlight away, leaving orange and red. Turbulence and varying air densities along the line of sight can create all manner of distortions of the lunar disk". Credit: Bob King

"As you gaze at the Moon over the next several nights, take in the contrast between its ancient crust, called the lunar highlands, and the darker seas (also known as maria, pronounced MAH-ree-uh). The crust appears white because it’s rich in calcium and aluminum, while the maria are slightly more recent basaltic lava flows rich in iron, which lends them a darker tone. Thanks to these two different types of terrain it’s easy to picture a male or female face or rabbit or anything your imagination desires".
http://www.universetoday.com/130756/low ... vest-moon/

[Lemon Cheesecake]

wah I forgot to go outside early for the moonrise to catch the orange of the harvest moon!! The moon is the closest it will get to the earth and it did look big, the night was clear and looking through my zoom lens the darker shades on the moon did seem to look more defined ( or was that wishful thinking?). I just didn't make it out to see the orange...so I am trying to see if it will happen tonight as well.

Any one see the orange harvest moon?

[Diana]

I tried to take a look at the moon but it was way too foggy out! I also got up super early and it was still too foggy.

Im going to go for a little walk now and see if I can catch a glimpse of it.

[Lemon Cheesecake]

The annual Orionid meteor shower usually lasts from about Oct. 16 to Oct. 26. A few swift Orionids may appear as early as the start of October, and there may be a lingering straggler or two as late as Nov. 7. The numbers seen by an observer tend to reach a maximum of 20 per hour when the conditions are clear and dark and the shower radiant point (near the border of the constellations Orion and Gemini) is pretty high in the sky. [Orionid Meteor Shower 2016: When, Where & How to See It]
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/orionids-me ... ober-2016/

The article says that because the moon was full this week that it will illuminate much of the night sky and make the meteors difficult to see but if you are an early riser you stand a better chance (like 5am)

[Polaris]

I saw the BIGGESt and LONGEST meteor streak across the sky around 11:30pm on Thursday!!!
Thing is, it streaked across Eridanus while Orion was still rising in the eastern horizon. Made my allnighter all worth it though, saw some cool meteors (most were faint, and it was pretty cloudy) and watched the sunrise.

There's bigger shower coming up in December, I think? And also the Taurids some point in November.

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Ohhhhh I am soooo jealous <and happy for you> I tried looking Thursday before the moon rose but didn't see any (or I just was looking in the wrong direction) and later after the moon had rose and Friday the fog had moved in and covered the sky (wasn't expecting that). But I spoke to a friend Friday afternoon and he said he had seen a few meteors when he was off to work around 4:30am. I just can't stay up that late or get up that early...I tried to look out the window Thursday night when I woke up around 2:45 am but didn't see anything so went back to bed.

[dragoness129]

It had been raining all day that day, so it was cloudy out. We couldn't see any of the meteors here. T_T

[Lemon Cheesecake]

Fortunately the meteor shower does go on through the beginning of November - we just missed the heaviest days - and as Polaris mentioned I think there are still some annual meteor showers coming up. I guess the scary thought is that the showers mean it is debris burning u p before it hits us so if you think of it that way then we are probably best off not seeing any! <but it looks so cool...>

[Polaris]

This is probably old news but I just learned about it today through an account I follow on instagram: Apparently one of the Chinese Space Stations lost control and is due to crumble soon. Maybe its debris will appear as meteor showers once they fall and hit our atmosphere :0

https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... h-to-earth

[Lemon Cheesecake]

that is quite possibly true - be nice if we could see it burning up as it came down