Anyone see any good ones?

We did! :cool:

A clear spell afforded us a good view from the top of a hill, but the urban glow bleached out all but the brightest meteors

Must have counted a dozen or so *really* big ones - fat yellow streaks, and scores of smaller, bluish white ones, shorter slimmer and faster.

one or two iridium flares as well.

Gutted, ive never seen anything like that.
Id love to see it.

not fair ...... think i found out too late .... went outside and watched the skies for ages with no luck .... think i saw a couple of small ones but im sure it was just my eyes playing tricks :loopy:

Originally posted by spyro2000
Gutted, ive never seen anything like that.
Id love to see it.

there are several meteor showers every year, perseids & leonids being just two of them.

there are some really good websites out there that will alert you to all sorts of phenomena, from iridium flares to the northern lights.

eyes to the skies people, eyes to the skies!

go out any dark night and you will see lots of satellites too.

With one of the websites I mentioned you will get emails every time the International Space Station passes visibly overhead, with plenty of notice so you can astound your friends, by casually pointing up at the sky and saying "oh look, the ISS" as it zooms overhead, a big bright blob, travelling faster than any aircraft, and disappears over the horizon.

Iridium flares are properly amazing, and can even be seen during the day. You can properly freak people out by getting them to watch the alloted patch of sky for 30 seconds, and suddenly they will see a bright, slow flash appear from nowhere.

All good fun.

Do you have a link to some of these sites Phan?

Yes I'd love to have a look at the sites too! My youngest has just started to take an intrest in the skys above. sat with him on my knee the other day looking at the hubble pictures, and he was repeating all the names.. it was sooo cute :love:

I'm a lapsed member of teh Sheffield Astronomy Society, and for many years was involved with the British Amateur Radio Astronomy Society.

As well as watching the meteors we used to 'listen' to them on special radio receivers - when they burn up they form a patch of ionised gas that reflects radio signals down to earth. You can sometimes hear them as 'pings' on suitable radio gear. They also make a 'swishing' noise, again with suitable gear.

Unfortunately, just as streetlights prevent visual observations the electronic mush we get in built up areas scuppers radio observations as well!

Joe

http://www.heavens-above.com

thats pretty good.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/SSapplications/Post/JavaSSOP/JavaSSOP.html

is the dogs cojones.


dont forget, you will need sheffields Lat. and Long.
N 53:23:09 ( 53.385853 )
W 1:27:10 ( -1.452903 )

The values are in degrees minutes and seconds (and the number in brackets is the decimal value)

I took the dog for a walk last night and saw 3 really big ones. Bigger and brighter than any I've seen before and all 3 were going in opposite directions :o

[EDIT] Walking the dog again tonight and i saw what looked like a star travelling quite fast across the sky. Could this have been the ISS? How long does it take to cross the horizon? I would guess this took 30 (ish) seconds.

Originally posted by vidster
[EDIT] Walking the dog again tonight and i saw what looked like a star travelling quite fast across the sky. Could this have been the ISS? How long does it take to cross the horizon? I would guess this took 30 (ish) seconds.

I don't think so - There's only one pass between 04-14 Aug and it was this morning at 4:30 am.

Also, a visible ISS pass ( not all passes aree visible it needs to be dark, and the sun is reflecting off the station) is typically 3 minutes or so. It starts as a pale dot on on horizon, moving slowly, by the time it crosses in front of you, its a big white smeary blob tracking waaayyy faster than a jet at altitude.

There's nothing else like it in the sky, unmistakeable.

There's a bright (Mag -6) iridium flare at 22:11:12 on the northern horizon tonight, elevation 13 deg, bearing 351 deg. That's pretty low on the horizon so a high spot would be required.

--
I'm having some trouble getting the Heaven's Above and NASA J-Track data to agree. Not sure what the problem is....HA says the last ISS pass was this morning at four thirty, but NASA says quarter to three....Caveat Emptor

They've moved all the Stuff from the JPL website to NASA J-Track. This is what I was using when stalking the ISS last year. Its got email alerts for ISS transits (and any other satellite, handy if you want to avoid being photogrpahed from space) plus a number of real time tools for Satellite tracking.

NASA realtime satellite information - http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/

I haven't been meteor watching for yonks. I used to sit up all night with my mates every autumn watching them, munching on crisps and pop. Ah, those were the days.

An ex g/f was one of the meteor watchers, she was in a rota and had to keep a log of anything she saw for some society or the other. It was fun, lying in her garden on a groundsheet with lots of blankets and cushions for four hours. The best one we ever saw was a bigger than average one that seemed to 'blow up' . If you are going meteor watching in Autumn it's always nice to be able to share body warmth even if I did get told off because we might miss something in the sky.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
There's a bright (Mag -6) iridium flare at 22:11:12 on the northern horizon tonight, elevation 13 deg, bearing 351 deg. That's pretty low on the horizon so a high spot would be required.


That's in about 5 minutes. check it out, should be bright!

[edit]

It was.

Whoa! Just saw it! Thanks for the tip-off, that was pretty cool.

Having said that, wtf was it??

Nice thing about satellites is that they are always bang on time.

I'm still lost. What does an iridium flare have to do with a satellite?

Originally posted by Ant
Whoa! Just saw it! Thanks for the tip-off, that was pretty cool.

Having said that, wtf was it??

It's one of these: http://www.hot.lt/news/iridium.jpg

better pic with the main mission antenna facing the camera (you can see how reflective it is) http://astro.ysc.go.jp/iridium-satellite.jpg

whole satellite - http://www.intermatica.it/img/iridium/satellite.jpg


operated by these people www.iridium.com

it was a private satphone network, but folded and got bought up again. This may have already happened once more.

Iridium launched 72 of these satellites into polar orbit years ago, but no-one bought the service (considering a mobile will do the job just as well in most destinations).

It's the antenna arrays mounted on the bottom of the satellite that reflect the sun.

These flares are often visible in the daytime too.

Thanks for that.

One last question. Or two. Whenever I've seen satellites they're been bright, fairly fast moving points of light. I presume this one is stationary? Why did it flare for such a brief period of time? And was it me, or did it descend a little?

EDIT: your edit beat my post.