BBC Focus Magazine

[Pandora]

It's coming up soon, isn't it? August sometime? I bet, for the third year running, it will be a bloomin' washout

[M Paul Lloyd]

The next Perseids shower will be around August 12th. Almost in time for my birthday.

Clear skies, clear skies.

[Jay]

hello @@ here, im working bloody nights so i reckon its gonna be a lovely clear night

[M Paul Lloyd]

Hi @@ I take it you are having problems logging in too?? Sorry about that, hopefully we will be able to get it sorted some time soon.

Bad news about your night shift, but hopefully your sacrifice will be to our collective advantage?

[Pandora]

Little bit more information re Perseids, from the NASA website

What’s Up for August?
08.05.09

› View Vodcast



What’s Up for August? Meteors!

Hello and welcome. I’m Jane Houston Jones at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

2009 is International Year of Astronomy. And each month this year we’re showcasing a great celestial object or event.

This month it’s the Perseid Meteor Shower!

Have you ever wondered what makes these cosmic fireworks? Meteor showers are just the debris of a passing comet or sometimes the debris from a fragmented asteroid.

When a comet nears the sun, its icy surface heats up.This causes clouds of gas, dirt and dust to be released, forming a tail of debris that can stretch for millions of miles.

As Earth passes near the dusty tail, some of the dust particles hit our atmosphere.They burn up and create the great celestial fireworks we see.

NASA generates meteor shower forecasts to prevent potential hazards to spacecraft that are launching or orbiting Earth.

NASA also monitors these showers to check the accuracy of the forecasts.

NASA’s Deep Impact mission is now on an extended mission called EPOXI. It will visit comet Hartley 2 in 2010. And the Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres flies by Vesta for the first time in 2011, and flies by the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015.

You don't need a telescope or binoculars to view a meteor shower. In fact, meteor showers are best seen with the unaided eye.

You'll see some Perseids all month long -- before and after midnight – but the real fireworks will appear in the wee hours of Wednesday, August 12th.Between 2 and 4 a.m. local time, look for up to 100 meteors per hour.

Meteor showers are best seen in the hours after midnight.That's when Earth is facing the direction in which the dust particles are colliding with our atmosphere.

And as a bonus for staying up late, two planets are visible in the eastern sky – one bright and the other faint.

Venus is just rising low on the horizon and is much brighter.Mars, despite that e-mail hoax about it being big and bright this month, appears as a reddish faint star-like object above Venus. And Jupiter shines as a brilliant beacon in the west.Through a telescope, you might even be able to see nearby Neptune!

You can learn all about NASA's missions at www.nasa.gov

That’s all for this month, I’m Jane Houston Jones.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Nice one Pandora. Fingers crossed for clear skies.

[Shadowwolf]

I could have predicted clouds since last year for this.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well prescient of you Mr.S, thick cloud pretty much all night here.

[Pandora]

Lots of cloud cover here too. ITN have this on their website though (crosses fingers and toes )

Skywatchers in the UK are getting ready for one of the most exciting displays of shooting stars they are likely to see all year.
Meteor shower: Head north to see shooting stars


The annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak this evening and could fill the night sky with hundreds of streaks of light.

The phenomenon occurs when the Earth passes through a stream debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle.

Forecasters say rain and cloud could obscure the spectacle for people in southern areas. The best views will be in the Midlands, the north of England and the northwest of Scotland.

The Perseid shower is a major trending topic on Twitter. Amateur astronomers around the globe are using the social networking website to share their pictures of the spectacle.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I'm not counting on nothing.

[M Paul Lloyd]

The weather forecasters suggested that the North East of England would enjoy some of the best viewing of the Perseids last night!

Well, if that was the best I dread to think what it might have been like elsewhere!

Suffice to say a hazy shroud reduced the viewing to 'very poor'

[Pandora]

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Third year running and its peed down all night. ALL night.

Wonder if there's any chance of viewing them tonight or is it too late? Clearish skies here now. Harrummph.

[Ang]

Hi - we have a question maybe somebody can answer on this blog!
We were aware of the Perseid shower on 11 August - we live in Farnham UK and it was a fairly clear evening when at about 10.15, something passed overhead, right over the house. I said to my friend who said 'what the hell is that' that it was probably perseids, until I looked for myself. It was impossible to determine the height of this thing or speed. It was passing from east to west. It was an irregular globe shape and appeared to have flames. It's very hard to describe as it was so odd looking. It was much too slow for a meteorite or a comet. What I thought it was was a hot air balloon passing over, where you could see the flame from the burner but neither the basket nor the balloon. I continued to think this until it was sillhouetted with the amber glow of the horizon (light pollution we all have here in the south), and realised there was no balloon! All this took about a minute to unfold and the thing 'petered out' after that to nothing. It was one of those times I wished I had a camera handy and we are so puzzled!!

We thought it might be the fabled 'ball lightning'?

Anybody got any ideas??

[M Paul Lloyd]

Hello Ang and welcome (a blog!? )

This is most interesting as I have only recently received a very similar report of 'a large orange glowing ball of flame travelling west to east at around 10 pm as viewed from the Silverlink in North Tyneside'. From what I have been told so far it took about fifteen minutes to travel some 20 miles before it was lost from view.

Hot air balloons, in my experience at least, rarely if ever fly at night and in the above description the objects progress was far too slow for it to have been a cometary object or indeed a meteor.

My money is on Ball lightening as the weather has certainly been 'thundery' of late, but am certainly not committing myself at such an early stage.

I am however intrigued to know more and will do some further investigation. .

[Ang]

Hi there, thank you for that - it would be very interesting to know of any more reports, we cant have been the only people who saw it as it was so obvious.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I shall do some checking Ang,

oh great Avatar.

[M Paul Lloyd]

Ok.. found this.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/18556 ... -Very-Fast
And this.
http://www.uk-ufo.co.uk/2009/06/eastbou ... -may-2009/
Also.
http://cryptoworld.co.uk/orange-balls-o ... th-london/
as well as.
http://www.ufoinfo.com/sightings/uk/070602.shtml

Of course I am not suggesting some loony invasion of little purple aliens just that 'glowing orange balls' seem like a common event, at least going by the given reports.

[Ang]

Well I never... now we know we were not alone in our viewing of the unusual object and it sounds very similar to some of the accounts on the link - makes me more curious to know what it was...
I still think it has to be something like ball lightning. would love to think it was something other worldly! Btw had a look up to the night sky (clearish down here in Surrey) but glimpsed no perseid shower :0(( probably not patient enough!

[M Paul Lloyd]

Yes you have to be patient when viewing meteor showers, the best time is usually very early in the morning when the sky is at its clearest and everything is usually at its darkest.

I set my alarm for 3am but sadly the weather didn't play ball in this neck of the woods.

[nemisis39]

I mentioned the perseid shower to Mrs N, she said if i wanted to i should, as it would be the 1st shower id seen this year what she meant by that have no idea

clouds clouds and more clouds that night though im afraid so saw nothing

as for your potential close encounter ang sorry to disapoint you but we had a simlar experince here last year and its easy to explain im afraid im 99% certain that it was a chinese lantern, seems to be the latest crazy at the moment, as you stated.

All this took about a minute to unfold and the thing 'petered out' after that to nothing.

Which is exactly what happened here, we have seen it on numerous occasions now and although it looks odd it isn't ET coming in for dinner