Events this week

[beren]

Some interesting events this week, if you have a copy of Astronomy 2005 it gives description to close proximity of the moon ,venus and mars in the morning sky . On the 7th and 8th Jupiter comes close to the moon , read somwhere depending on lat the planet will be occullated by the lunar surface ....that would be great to image.Anywhy looks like some early wake ups.:astron:

[iceman]

yeh I think in Nth America and Canada, they get to see the occultation..

Anyway it matters not what is in the sky this week, the way things are going it'll be 5 weeks of bad weather and no observing. :( Cloudy last night, cloudy this morning..

Sick of getting up at 3:30am, going outside and looking up, shedding a little tear :( and heading back to bed :lol:

My copy of Astronomy 2005 arrives this week :clap:

[rumples riot]

Had a great night myself last night, went to two parties, then got home about 130am; set up the scope and did some imaging. At 5 this morning I finally ran out of puff and was going to sleep at the computer. Went to bed and now at 1.23pm see that the clouds have rolled in again. So get ready for more clouds coming your way.

I had a great night last night, the first for many weeks. Clear skies and lovely seeing.

Paul

[Dave47tuc]

Good to see you getting some star light in Paul.
Every time i've been ready to observe cloud.
:cloudy:

Best

[Smokey]

Doesnt look like the clouds will be disappearing anytime soon :( Check the Sat map from the BOM http://www.bom.gov.au/gms/IDE00035.latest.shtml.

[Dave47tuc]

Ahhh,
If someone would invent the cloud zapper:rolleyes:

Like to go to Ullruu but one must :work:
and pay the tax man. Oh and save for the next eyepiece!

Best

[loopy]

Daintree looks nice :)

[Saturn%5]

Hi Guys
I dont have a new scope but have my have my new mirror in the scope now and have only had one night out with it and even then not a good night as it was far too hot and now cloud someone in my area must have bought a new scope :whistle: as it looks like the clouds are here to stay until the middle of next week:mad2: So see you all out in the middle of oz.

[Dave]

Make hot cocoa. Bundle up. Tell your friends: the best meteor shower of 2004 is about to peak on a long cold December night.
It's the Geminids. The best time to look is Monday and Tuesday nights to early morning, Dec.13th & 14th. Sky watchers who stay outside for a few hours around midnight can expect to see dozens of "shooting stars.".. at least we hope to, showers are notoriously unpredicatble.

The source of the shower is asteroid 3200 Phaethon. There's a cloud of dust trailing the asteroid and Earth ploughs through it every year in mid-December. Bits of dust travelling well over 100,000km/h hit our atmosphere and turn into glowing meteors.

Where should you look? Anywhere. Geminids streak all over the sky. Trace some backwards: they all lead to a radiant point in the constellation Gemini. This year the radiant lies next to Saturn - a beautiful coincidence. Gemini and Saturn are easy to find in the late night sky.

Take a look at Saturn using a telescope; you won't be disappointed. Even a small 'scope shows Saturn's breathtaking rings. You might also notice a pinprick of light near Saturn: that's Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan is an exquisitely weird place. It has orange clouds, an icy continent the size of Australia and, possibly, seas filled with something like petroleum! The ESA Huygens probe, to be deployed from NASA's Cassini spacecraft later this month, will land on Titan in January 2005.

City lights are bad for meteor showers. The glare can reduce the number of meteors you see 3 to 10-fold. Country skies are going to be very dark and perfect for meteor watching.

Although the middle of the night is probably best, start looking for Geminids as soon as the sun goes down. The first dark hours after sunset are when Earthgrazers appear.

Earthgrazers are meteors that skim almost horizontally across the top of Earth's atmosphere, like a stone skipping across a pond. Earthgrazers are bright, long and colourful, even one can make your day.

Finally, the Geminids are a little strange. It's their parentage: 3200 Phaethon. Meteor showers are supposed to come from comets, but 3200 Phaethon looks like an asteroid. This has puzzled astronomers for years.

Comets are made of ice and dust and rock. Sunlight vaporizes the ice, opening fissures which spew gas and dust into space. This is why comets have tails. When Earth runs into an old comet tail we see a meteor shower. Asteroids, on the other hand, are mainly rocky and they rarely spew anything. No tail means no shower.

Asteroid 3200 Phaethon might have gotten a tail, of sorts, by bumping into another asteroid. 3200 Phaethon spends much of its time in the asteroid belt. Hitting a neighbour could have created a cloud of debris that follows 3200 Phaethon around the solar system.

That's one idea. Another is that 3200 Phaethon is a comet-a dead one. It died from too much Sun. Every year and a half, 3200 Phaethon dives inward from the asteroid belt. Passing only 3.5 million kilometres from Earth's orbit, it approaches the Sun closer than Mercury does. Repeated sunbaking could have vaporized all of 3200 Phaethon's ice long ago, leaving behind a rocky skeleton with a dribble of comet dust in its wake.

Comet? Asteroid? Comet-carcass? No one knows for sure. It's a mystery to savour on Dec. 13th … with hot cocoa at your side and the Geminids overhead.

If you get any pics.. send 'em in!

[Dave]

By the way Mike... how do I edit my profile? I'm down as a junior member... I like it the term, but I'm a little past the junior stage.

[iceman]

Hi Dave, at the moment the title under your name is based on how many posts you have made.

I'll modify the forums in the next day or 2 to allow users to set their own 'custom title'.

As for the meteors, i'm expecting a great show over my house.. but of course it'll be cloudy so I won't see it. :mad:

[craxguy]

anybody know a good dark sky area that are no more than 1hour drive from sydney metropolitan area?
any of you guys living in sydney gonna do some observation for the geminids MS?

[iceman]

Come up to the Central Coast, I go to Mangrove Mountain which is about an hour north or Sydney (maybe a little over an hour), and about 25 minutes west of me at Gosford.

I go to a soccer field there and it's nice and dark with good views of most horizons.

The way the weather is lately though, good luck seeing any :/ another cloudy night tonight.

[craxguy]

i was watching arsenal-chelsea yesterday morning and at 4am the sky just turn cristal clear. stand at my balcony for a while, and before i know it 3 bright meteor pass me in 20minute!!

i might go down to cronulla tonite.

Cheers iceman,

[Mick]

What time do you reckon? I've been told around 24:00. Pollux and Castor are rising soon.
:astron:

[rumples riot]

Like to get out an have a look but surprise surprise, it raining again. Starting to feel like the tropics:windy:

[craxguy]

just got back from cronulla. from a hail storm this afternoon to a clear sky at night. we are lucky indeed.
dont do anything fancy, just enjoying it with bunch o friends. i lost count of the meteor i saw, but should be well above 20. its just so amazing...well its my 1st ever meteor shower experience (if you dont count the 3 i saw last nite during EPL match of course)

Cheers

[iceman]

I was out imaging Saturn at 1:30am this morning, and I only saw 1 geminid :( I think that's mainly cause I had my head in the finderscope or looking at the laptop screen, instead of admiring the beatiful (clear!!!!!!!!!!) night sky.

The 1 I saw was very bright and spectacular though!

[iceman]

As forum administrator and moderator, it's my job to ensure that the reputation of the forums is not inadvertently (or otherwise) tarnished by misleading or incorrect posts.

It's been brought to my attention that a post by Dave Reneke in this thread, about the Geminids, is actually mostly copied from the NASA Science page (see http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/06dec_geminids.htm) without giving credit to the original source.

It's not for me to judge whether it was an accidental oversight or otherwise, but as an ongoing rule, can everyone please ensure that if you post material from another website please give credit where it is due so that we may avoid any plagiarism claims.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for having to bring down the tone for a brief moment.