November 7, 2010 #109 – Sinuous meteor trails and the earth has 14 motions.

In post #081, I talked about a meteor that I observed which developed a sinuous trail that lasted for quite a while. Well, as I was continuing my reading of old Astronomical journals an article appeared chronicling a similar occurrence on Oct. 22, 1895, in Grahamtown, Cape Colony, South Africa. It was printed in the 1896, “Popular Astronomy – Vol. III”

(Click to read)

The other short article discusses all the motions of the earth as postulated by Camille Flammarion. It lists 14 then adds two more conjectural motions. This was almost 90 years ago. It’s from the “Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Vol. XV” by editor C.A. Chant. It will give the reader a sense of how far the science of astronomy had advanced at that time. I sure missed a few!



Clear Sky - Rich

November 6, 2010 #108 – Telescopic Meteors and the Witness of A Fall of 15,019 Meteoric Stones from an exploding Aerolite in the 1912.

I’m sure that most amateur astronomers, that have spent any time at the eyepiece of their telescope, have seen a few meteors flash through the field of view. I can recall a few occasions, as a boy, peering through the narrow field of my Unitron 125 that it happened. Each time I would be amazed and think about how low the odds were of this happening. That is until reading this article. It was published in the 1907 “Popular Astronomy – Vol.XV”

(Click to enlarge)

These two short articles caught my eye. It discusses meteors seen during a solar eclipse. Then the second confirms what I have observed, that it probably wasn’t meteors after all. It’s amazing what sun light will illuminate floating in the atmosphere. (See Post #037) The first article is in “Popular Astronomy – Vol. II and the second in Vol. III., 1895 & 96.

As we are camping in central Colorado I thought I might try and find some records of meteor falls in the region. This one actually raised dust in the desert, like rifle bullets as the fragments hit the ground, all 15,000 of them!! From the 1895 “Popular Astronomy – Vol. II”

Clear Sky - Rich

October 30, 2010 #101 - A Procession of Meteors on February 9, 1913

While reading through the 1922 "Popular Astronomy Vol. XXX"  I was intrigued by this article, written by William H. Pickering. This is the first time I've read about a train of meteors. I have plotted the path on a map to help me visualize the path. All I can say is this had to be quite spectacular.

(Click to enlarge for reading)

There was at least a second follow up article by Pickering but I have not been able to find it. Vol. XXX is the last Popular Astronomy that was in the archives.

Clear Sky - Rich

October 22, 2010 #093 - Unique Meteor Sightings From Collection

In this post I would like to pass along some unique historical meteor sightings that I have collected. The  drawing is from South America and I have no source or date for it. The clippings are from various old periodicals from dates in the 1800's and early 1900's. I think you will agree that some are quite spectacular. It strikes me that the fall in Lake Ontario has a location documented well enough that it might be possible for a boat towing a magnetometer to locate the fall. I'm sure a large diameter iron meteor would set off the detector.

(Click on the individual page to enlarge it for reading)

Clear Sky - Rich

October 21, 2010 #092 - The "Fiery" Meteor of 1783

One of my astronomical researches (for fun) projects has been to collect historical accounts of meteor sightings. There seems to be one account that stands out in the literature as Europe's most spectacular appearance. In the fall of 1783 a meteor entered the earths atmosphere over the North Sea traveled across the British Isle, crossed the Channel onto the Continent, and may have made it 1000 miles to Italy. As it traveled it threw off pieces and varied greatly in brightness.

(The pictures source and artist are unknown

but this is a contemporary representation of the event)

I found this account in "The Edinburgh Magazine" dated 1785 on Google Books. The article is included below. If you search you will find many references to what must have been a major event of the times and witnessed by tens of thousands of people.

(Click on the pages to enlarge for reading and remember,
at that time printers exchanged "f" for "S")

Clear Sky - Rich

October 10, 2010 #081 - Skies of Colorado

We have been set up in almost the exact center of Colorado for the last month. We are presently adjacent to the 12 to 14 thousand foot College Mountain Range at an altitude of about 8,000 ft. To say that the seeing is good, in most places, is not in the same class as high in the mountains. My aging eyes, when dark adapted, can see star clusters that are clearer than I can remember from my boyhood in rural Indiana.

I was out laying in my lawn chair, with my binoculars, watching for meteors a few nights ago. I picked up a few bright ones during the period between 3:30 and 4:30 am. After I would spy one I would quickly try to see the trail in the binoculars with only marginal success. As I caught #7 slightly to the SE of Polaris I quickly centered the trail in view. I was amazed to see the trail lingering. It remained a strait line the color and transparency of cigarette smoke for the first minute and expanding very little. To my amazement during the second and third minute it began to bend into an "S" shape similar to the constellation Draco not far away. In all it was visible about 3.5 minutes. When the excitement began to subside and I had time to think about what I had seen it struck me that this was an illustration of atmospheric currents at probably over 60 miles near the edge of space.

The next night I caught ISS going over and later two identical satellites in near polar orbit about ten degrees apart one right behind the other with exactly the same brightness. Tonight the thin crescent of the moon floats over 14,000 ft. Mt. Princeton. Exciting observations, for a boy from the flat lands of Indiana.



Clear Sky - Rich

September 2, 2009 #071 - Meteor

We are sitting watching the moon and Jupiter rise out of Lake Superior on this beautiful Wisconsin evening. As we looked across the lake a meteor as bright as Jupiter falls north of the moon almost directly down towards the water. The color was a pale yellow until it neared the surface when there was a marked deceleration and the color turned bright sparkling silver. At the very lowest point, almost at the surface of the lake from our perspective, it dimmed and slowly lost its brightness, at it terminus it looked as if there was a trail of smoke like debris.

I spent several days watching meteors in the Perseid Shower period last month. On the peak evening I saw almost 90 per hour and half a dozen sporadic meteors before the moon became too bright. During the clear night a couple of days later there were still a few that were bright enough to be seen in the moon light.

Looking south I am reminded, as Scorpius sets, Sagittarius is at mid sky, and Orion makes an after midnight appearance, that winter again approaches. We are adjusting to retirement but why has the clock speeded up?

Clear Sky - Rich

August 20, 2008 #034 - Meteors

As I was standing in the yard looking for Perseid meteors last week my mind traveled back to 1966. That fall the news media was hyping a Leonid meteor shower that could rival the 1866 and 67 peak. Astronomical predictions for showy meteor showers and comets tend to be overblown. Halley was a big disappointment after months of news media hype. It is the surprise event which usually turns out being spectacular. The peak which is associated with Comet Tempel-Tuttle was to occur that year on November 11.

I talked my sister into taking the army cots out in the back yard to count meteors. The sky was fortunately clear that night. It was, needless to say a little cool out so we both wrapped up in our sleeping bags and began looking for trails as twilight ended.

We were a little disappointed as early on things were slow. Then as the night wore on we began to notice more, including some very bright trails. My count reached about a hundred an hour. Then something fantastic occurred. The sky opened up and meteors began to rain on us. We lost count when we saw several at a time. The bright ones kept pulling our eyes to different parts of the sky. There were a lot of wows and look at that! Then a fantastic sight occurred! Literally hundreds of meteors began to be visible at any glance. It reminded me of driving through a snow storm with the flakes shining in the headlights, coming at you. It turned out to be the meteor storm of a lifetime. We just lay there and tried to take it all in. I read later in Sky & Telescope that it was estimated that the peak reached an estimated 10,000 per hour at some western locations in the U.S.

We finally left the yard for our beds late that night, cold but filled with wonder at what we had seen.

Clear Sky - Rich