Perseid Meteors and a Big Sunspot

[Whitters]

Space Weather News for August 10, 2004
http://spaceweather.com

PERSEID METEORS:  The Perseid meteor shower peaks this week. Look for rare but lovely Perseid Earthgrazers when the sun goes down on Wednesday, August 11th. Then, before dawn on Thursday, August 12th, go outside for the main event: as many as 60 meteors per hour. Getting away from city lights is a good idea: dark skies reveal more meteors.

VENUS AND THE MOON: Early Thursday morning just before dawn when the Perseid meteor shower is supposed to be most intense, Venus and the crescent moon will appear side-by-side in the eastern sky.  This lovely pair would be worth waking up for even if there were no meteor shower.
Check SpaceWeather.com for a sky map.

BIG SUNSPOT:  Sunspot 649, which unleashed several powerful solar flares
in July, is back and it's growing again.   The large spot has a complex
magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares.  It's easy to see, but never look directly at the blinding sun.  Check SpaceWeather.com for safe solar observing tips.


[ This Message was edited by: Whitters on 2004-08-10 23:08 ]

[Mike]

Well Cris and I stood in the garden at approx 2315 tonight and straight away saw a meteor. We stood and watched a further 3 within the space of 30-40 seconds, including a very bright fireball that covered about a third of the sky.

By then I was thinking "Wow, this is going to be one hell of a show!". Well, I stood for a further 15 minutes and saw diddly-squat!


I'm going back out for a bit too see if there's any more.

[Mike]

Went out again between 2340 and 0005 and counted another six. One of those clearly wasn't a perseid as it went in a line between Ursa Major and Cassiopia. It was dim, travelled slowly, but lasted around 3-4 seconds.

Overall not very impressive really.