The Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower

The Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower should peak Monday night, the 5th of May at 07:00 Universal Time (or midnight Mountain Time, 11pm Pacific Time), but the best viewing times (due to the Moon and a low Eastern radiant) will a few hours before dawn Tuesday morning, around 4am to 5am.

At the peak, up to 55 meteors could be seen each hour.  They’re pretty fast, at 66km/second, often bright with very long paths, and leave persistent glowing trails.

 

The source of the meteors is debris from Halley’s comet.  The Comet’s orbital path contains dust particles and ice (thinned out in spots by Jupiter).  The Earth crosses the orbital path of Halley’s Comet twice each year.  In May we see it as the Eta Aquarid meteor shower and in October the Orionids.

 

The Eta Aquarids should be best seen early Tuesday morning. The Moon will have set by then, so it will be seen under a dark sky.  The radiant is low in the Eastern sky, in Aquarius, which rises around 4am.  So half the meteors will be unseen below the horizon. 

 

For more information, see http://www.imo.net/calendar/2014#eta

 

Rick Nowell

 

College of the Rockies

Cranbrook, BC, Canada

49°31’03″N, 115°44’37″W, 940m

 

 

 

Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower Tuesday May 6 2014 around 4am

The Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower should peak Tuesday morning, the 6th of May at 07:00 Universal Time (or midnight Pacific Daylight Savings Time, or 1am Mountain Saving Time), but the best viewing times (due to the Moon and a low Eastern radiant) will a few hours before dawn Tuesday morning, around 4am to 5am.

At the peak, up to 55 meteors could be seen each hour. They’re pretty fast, at 66km/second, often bright with very long paths, and leave persistent glowing trails.

The source of the meteors is debris from Halley’s Comet. The Comet’s orbital path contains dust particles and ice (thinned out in spots by Jupiter). The Earth crosses Halley’s orbital path twice each year. In May we see it as the Eta Aquariid meteor shower and in October the Orionids.

The Eta Aquariids will be best seen early Tuesday morning. The Moon will have set by then, so it will be seen under a dark sky. The radiant is low in the Eastern sky, in Aquarius, which rises around 4am. So over half of the meteors will be unseen below the horizon.

If you miss the peak, they will continue to fall all week, slowly tapering off, with above 30 meteors/hr lasting from May 3 to Saturday May 10 2014.

For more information, see the International Meteor Organization Site at http://www.imo.net/calendar/2014#eta

Comet ISON and Meteor Counts in January 2014

Preliminary results from Belarus-Ukraine observers : 

are consistent with the hypothesis that earth did pass through Comet ISON’s long tail  in January 7-23, and that this caused a significant increase in meteor counts as detected by observers in Ukraine and Belarus.

To read early report (PS this is a work in progress : http://1drv.ms/1gWhvHW )

Period January 7-23

Year  Average Count

2012  /10

2013 / 20

2014 / 80

 

Call to Action : If any others can summarize their own results this would be very helpful.

Minsk Team write : 

Уважаемые коллеги Александр и Bill !

Остаётся просмотреть снимки на 2,5 олл-скай камерах 🙂

11 – 13 января – явно вырисовывается радиант “спорадических” метеоров из
региона Leo,LMi, UMa, UMi, Cam, Lyn, Cnc.

Мы просмотрели снимки олл-скай камер в интервале времени 10 – 17 января 2014 года.
Иван М. Сергей показал график радионаблюдений метеорного фона за январь 2014 – там хорошо просматривается повышенная метеорная активность 08 – 24 января 2014. Прилагаю графики радионаблюдений за январь 2012 и январь 2013

Может нам поднять снимки и просмотреть ещё раз в интервале 06 – 26 января 2014 ?

Bill, может у Вас кто-нибудь тоже проведёт подобную работу – просмотры снимков олл-скай камер и радионаблюдения метеорного фона

Иван Брюханов
Анастасия Кулаковская, Валентин Таболич, Анастасия Таболич.
Минск

ENGL

Dear colleagues, Alexander and Bill!

It remains to view images on 2.5 all-sky cameras 🙂

January 11-13 – clearly emerges radiant ” sporadic ” meteors from the region
Leo, LMi, UMa, UMi, Cam, Lyn, Cnc.

We viewed pictures of all- sky cameras in the time interval 10-17 January 2014.
Ivan Sergei M. schedule radio observations showed meteor background for January 2014 – there is clearly visible meteor activity increased 08 – January 24, 2014 . Attached chart for radio observations in January 2012 and January 2013

Maybe we should raise the pictures and see again in the range of 06 – 26 January 2014 ?

Bill, can you hold someone too similar work – views pictures all- sky cameras and radio observations of the meteor background?

Ivan Bryukhanov
Anastasia Kulakovskaya, Valentin Tabolich, Anastasia Tabolich.
Minsk

Northern lights photographed by Andy Gray on Nov 27

This was the night of the COMET ISON perihelion and sublimation event November 27th. The cosmic wind would carry particles in a cone shape away from far side of the sun. So it is just a coincidence?  But then maybe the sublimation happened over many days even a couple of weeks (not a single explosion) and perhaps particles were projected earthwards.

4 Meteor Showers and Comet Lovejoy

For the past few weeks you may have noticed meteors shooting across the sky. There is the Geminid meteor shower and three other smaller meteor showers in progress. Although with the bright moon, the dimmer meteors aren’t as easily seen.

The Geminids started Dec 4 and end Dec 17. On Sat Dec 14, at their peak they can give 120 meteors per hour. Fairly slow for meteors, they are travelling at a speed of 35 km/s. (That’s still pretty fast. For comparison, the International space station orbits at 8km/s, and goes around the Earth in 90 minutes.)

There are three smaller showers in progress: The sigma-Hydrids from Dec 03-Dec 15, peaked on Thurs Dec 12 with 3 meteors/hour, at speeds of 58km/s.
The Comae Berenicids from Dec 12-Jan 23 peaked on Monday Dec 16 with 3 meteors/hour, at speeds of 65km/s
And the December Leo Minorids from Dec 05-Feb 04 peak on Thurs Dec 19 with 5 meteors/hour at 64km/s

Don’t forget Comet Lovejoy in the early morning around 7am, before sunrise, a small fuzzy blob visible between Hercules and Corona Borealis above the eastern horizon. The bright moon drowns it out currently, so you’ll need binoculars or a telescope to see it and its slight tail.

ISON – In Memoriam

In Memoriam

 
Submitted by Karl Battams on Mon, 12/02/2013 – 08:32
Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)
Born 4.5 Billion BC, Fragmented Nov 28, 2013 (age 4.5-billion yrs old) 
 
“Born in a dusty and turbulent environment, comet ISON spent its early years being jostled and struck by siblings both large and small. Surviving a particularly violent first few million years, ISON retreated to the Oort Cloud, where it maintained a largely reclusive existence for nearly four billion years. But around 3-million B.C., a chance encounter with a passing star coerced ISON into undertaking a pioneering career as a Sungrazer. On September 21, 2012, ISON made itself known to us, and allowed us to catalog the most extraordinary part of its spectacular vocational calling”.  Karl Battams, CIOC (NASA’s Comet ISON Observing Campaign.
 
  

ISON ALIVE – the excitement continues

Saturday Nov 30, 2013

19:42 UTC : Bye Bye ISON? A “sublimated” Comet is now reduced to a cone of molecules (mostly H and O) being blasted as a cone away from the sun by the solar winds. I wonder if the Northern Lights will be affected over the next day or two (estimated time for molecules to arrive at earth)? 

00:19 UTC : ISON particles (after fragmentation) significant enough to track. Light reflects mostly from Oxygen. Usually tail points away from SUN towards future trajectory. Not in ISON’s case. Although not having a 3D image, it is hard to get a sense of the direction of the ISON sublimation blast cone. You can see here how the blast cone is unsymmetrical. To the left the particles are blasted out and away from the sun,but to the right the blast cone seems to be “pulled back towards the sun” by the turbulance.

Friday Nov 29, 2013 : Yesterday lunchtime at Cattle Point Urban Star Park, we bit our nails with excitement waiting for ISON to reappear from behind the sun (or SOHO’s sun cover). Google+/Youtube had carried the event live around the globe. It was an exciting build up.  I was even pleased with Phil Tait’s involvement as the BadAstronomer.

As the critical moment came, and as we waited and waited, ISON did not reappear. One of the panel stated he was sure ISON had disintegrated (or sublimed), and a look of disappointment came across all the faces of the show participants as each came to the conclusion he was likely right. One by one with their tails beneath their legs, all the Google+ participants left the show. By 1 pm the show was over and ISON was DEAD.

NASA, keen to get home to their turkey dinners, sadly and quickly announced that ISON had “sublimated” with all its molecules absorbed by the sun’s heat and gravity. I was thinking that maybe the solar wind would in fact blast the particles below a certain size out in a cone which might or might not reach the earth in 2 days time – and that might still happen on Saturday.

Well with Google/NASA on their way to dinner, the only people left was ESA (European Space Agency). About 13:30 a twitter from ESA announced  “Stay tuned, but it does seem that a remnant of ISON’s tail follows the comet’s trajectory. Images refresh here:

I couldn’t contain my excitement.

I twitter back to ESA :  the tail should point away from the SUN after the perihelion – so says all the blogs? True?

Their response was even more devasting : Our scientists have confirmed, comet is gone , thanks for sharing this comet-watching night with us

 I quickly updated my Facebook to delete my new ISON is ALIVE post. 

The evening and night passed slowly as I mulled over ISON’s demise. I was heartened by all the great science results people like Dr. Tony Remijan (ALMA) must have got and thought about Dr. Mike Mumma’s planned experiments which I expect will have produced many scientific advances ( see https://bcmeteors.net/index.php/77-news/170-ison-experiments-cioc ) BUT will ALMA finally prove that the seeds of life itself are carried by the (already proven) water of the core of ISON. Hopefully. 

Well suddenly at  09:45 Friday Nov 29, we get the great news in an @ScienceChannel twitter that ISON (at least the tails and fragmented core) may have survived its trip around the sun : 1h . Comet ISON may have survived its trip around the sun! Here’s the latest:

What a roller coaster you are ISON. And “what next?” we are all asking  🙂

Predictions (in fun) :

  • Great Northern Lights tomorrow + some satellite and radio issues starting tomorrow (as particles carried by solar wind reach earth)
  • Great views of comet ISON starting in 2-3 days as the remnants shoot off to the Oort Cloud and possibly to another star. Early morning (6:30 am) in ESE.
  • Exciting meteor showers mid-January (as earth passes close to the tail-end of the still surviving tail 

Apparently Oxygen is the key element which gives bright light from a comet. So the trailing tail could be oxygen or even actually water vapour. 

Question : Strange. The 2 tails are meant to point away from the sun after the perihelion. What are we seeing here? Could it be sunlight reflecting off the debris trail? Clearly a debris train containing much oxygen. So is it possible if ISON had not had this sublimation event that the tails would point in the opposite direction away from the Sun? But bright light means oxygen. So has disintegration caused trailing particles containing oxygen. My bet is this is mostly water (ie big particles), as if it was oxygen molecules the solar wind would have blasted the molecules AHEAD of ISON by now. Interesting. I await NASA/CIOC explanation. 

I believe this image might show that the trailing 2 tails of ION’s and Dust, are replaced by a “cone” of particles being blasted out and away from the point of disintegration. Could this be what we are seeing? i.e. what leaves the “black circle”  is quite different from what entered.