{"id":602,"date":"2017-01-14T05:05:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T05:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/wp\/2017\/01\/14\/fall-2016-meteor-showers\/"},"modified":"2017-01-14T05:05:41","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T05:05:41","slug":"fall-2016-meteor-showers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/?p=602","title":{"rendered":"Fall 2016 Meteor Showers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meteor Showers in Oct, Nov, Dec 2016.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

**The Geminids are the best at 120 meteors per hour, are on 14 Dec.\u00a0 *The Orionids (21 Oct) and the Leonids (17 Nov) both at 15 meteors per hour are middling.\u00a0 The Northern Taurids on 12 Nov at 5 meteors per hour aren\u2019t as frequent but they produce many bright fireballs, and flashes on the Moon.\u00a0 However, the bright Moon will spoil much of the meteor showers this year.\u00a0 Meteor velocities can range from about 11 km\/s (very slow) to 72 km\/s (very fast). 40 km\/s is roughly medium speed.\u00a0 (That’s still pretty fast. For comparison, the International space station orbits at 8km\/s, and goes around the Earth in 90 minutes.)<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>These meteors travel across the sky very swiftly, with “trains”.\u00a0 Look for a series of small explosions in the meteor trail as the rock breaks up. Some leave a luminous train of particles that last for a few seconds or even a minute. Colours can be yellow to brilliant green. You may hear a delayed supersonic rumble (5 minutes later) if a fireball comes close overhead and a chirp of descending pitch on a shortwave radio, from the meteors ion plasma.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>*<\/span>Fri 21 Oct: The ORIONIDs:<\/strong> Active: Oct 02\u2013Nov 07 with maximum on Friday Oct 21;\u00a0 The zenith hourly rate (ZHR) is\u00a0 15 meteors\/hr; with a fast speed of 66 km\/s, the remnants of Comet Halley.\u00a0 This year is likely a typical shower at 15 meteors per hour.\u00a0\u00a0 This can vary from year to year, with a 12 year cycle of strong and weak peaks ranging from 14 to 31 meteors per hour; and another factor which can produce outbursts of 70 meteors\/hr.\u00a0 The Moon will rise around midnight at its last quarter (65%-illuminated) which bright glow will drown out the fainter meteors.\u00a0 The meteors should radiate out from the North part of Orion the Hunter, by his club, on the Eastern horizon.\u00a0 Since the Moon is located quite close to the radiant at this time it will spoil all optical observations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>These meteors consist of falling ice pellets, dust and sand debris encountered as the Earth crosses the orbit of Halley\u2019s Comet, coming in fast at 66 km per second. This debris moves parallel to itself along the orbit of the comet, thus from our Earth perspective it looks like they radiate out from a single point, the “radiant”. The Orionids all appear to radiate out from Orion, the streaks looking like huge bicycle spokes with the centre hub at Orion’s shoulder.\u00a0 They are visible coming from the Eastern horizon when Orion rises after midnight towards 1 to 6am. The half of the meteors that go below the horizon won\u2019t be seen. You should be out of town where it\u2019s dark to see them best. Don’t look towards the East, these trails will look short due to foreshortening.\u00a0 Instead look 90 degrees away, either straight overhead, or to the North, away from the Moon’s bright light.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Sat 12 Nov: The Northern TAURIDs<\/span><\/strong>: (Active: Oct 20 to Dec 10, max on 12 Nov).\u00a0 The zenith hourly rate (ZHR) is\u00a0 just 5 meteors\/hour; velocity a slow 29km\/s. The Earth passes through a debris stream left by Comet Encke, source of the Taurid Meteor Shower.\u00a0 Taurid meteors tend to be larger than average: they are bright, with many fireballs. They also penetrate deeper into the Earth\u2019s atmosphere than other meteors. For example, Orionids typically burn up at altitudes of 93 km, but the Taurids make it down to 68 km. Some get even lower \u2014 meteor cameras have tracked 1-inch Northern Taurid meteors down to 58 km.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Moon Impacts<\/span><\/strong>: Because the Taurid Meteors can be 1 inch bullets of ice moving at 29 km\/s (which is a hypersonic mach 88), they produce bright flashes of light when they strike the Moon. Taurid lunar impacts are visible with the college\u2019s 10\u2033 or 11\u201d Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes as small flickers of light, in dark regions.\u00a0 However, since the moon is 94% illuminated on Nov 12, there\u2019s not much dark area to look into. \u00a0But sometimes you can see brighter\u00a0flashes in the illuminated area as well. \u00a0Some telescopes are fitted with video cameras and\u00a0count how many meteors hit the Moon overall. \u00a0One impact imaged\u00a0on\u00a0Sep\u00a02013\u00a0was so hot it\u00a0glowed white hot\u00a0for 8 seconds–it was estimated to be a 40kg rock.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>*Thu 17 Nov: The LEONIDs<\/span><\/strong> Active: Nov 06\u2013Nov 30 Nov 17; Maximum: Thu Nov 17; ZHR = 15 meteors\/hr; V = 71 km\/s.\u00a0 These arrive just three days after the full Moon, which will make it hard to see them.\u00a0 There are a lot of fast green meteors in the Leonids.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Mon 28 Nov: The November Orionids<\/span><\/strong>.\u00a0 Active: November 14\u2013December 6; Maximum: Monday Nov 28;\u00a0 ZHR = 3 meteors\/hr; V = 44 km\/s<\/span><\/p>\n

**Wed 14 Dec: The GEMINIDS<\/strong>; active Dec 04\u2013Dec 17; Maximum: Dec 14; ZHR = 120 meteors\/hr; V= 35 km\/s.<\/span><\/p>\n

The best and most reliable meteor shower of the year are the Geminids at 120 meteors per hour on Wednesday, December 14.\u00a0 Except we have the Full Moon on the same night to spoil them.\u00a0 The Geminid meteors are debris from an extinct comet (called 3200 Phaethon) coming in at 35 km\/second. \u00a0(That’s a medium speed for a meteor. \u00a0Other meteor shower velocities range from 11 to 72 km\/s.) The Geminids come in various colours–65% being white, 26% yellow, and the remaining 9% blue, red and green. \u00a0The meteors are the sand, dust and gravel remains of an Apollo asteroid (3200 Phaethon), coming in at medium speeds of 35km\/second. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Colourful meteor here taken by Robert Ede in Invermere, against the Milky Way to the South.\u00a0 Note the colour in the trail starts green and turns red. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Fireball Colours<\/span><\/strong>: Green can be caused by copper or magnesium metal burning. Other colours seen are yellow, orange and red. \u00a0Iron burns yellow (eg. steel wool), silicates burn red and sodium burns <\/span>orange.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Ionization trails<\/span><\/strong>: Sometimes the wakes behind them can be ionized oxygen emitting green light. That occurs at higher altitudes where the air pressure is low. The higher collision energies make oxygen produce a greenish glow, nitrogen emits blue and red, at the lower energies a dim red. Just like the colours in the Northern Lights. So, fast meteors would have more energy and produce more greens and blues, slow meteors would have lower energy and produce reds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Which direction is best to look? Where it’s darkest. As you can see in these composite photos from last year, the fireballs scatter all over the sky, radiating out from Gemini to the East. But when you watch the area around Gemini, the streaks there are shorter and slower moving. These fisheye photos show the whole sky as a circle: North is up, South down, East to the left, and West to right.<\/span><\/p>\n

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All the brighter\u00a0Geminid Meteors during\u00a0the night of 14 Dec 2014. \u00a0\u00a0The photos were taken with the College of the Rockies meteor cam in Cranbrook, BC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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It is thought the Geminids originated from an asteroid named 3200 Phaethon,\u00a0discovered in 1983. \u00a0It may be a small 5km fragment from the 544km main belt asteroid Pallas<\/span><\/p>\n

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Meteor Showers in Oct, Nov, Dec 2016. **The Geminids are the best at 120 meteors per hour, are on 14 Dec.\u00a0 *The Orionids (21 Oct) and the Leonids (17 Nov) both at 15 meteors per hour are middling.\u00a0 The Northern Taurids on 12 Nov at 5 meteors per hour aren\u2019t as frequent but they produce … Continue reading “Fall 2016 Meteor Showers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}