Niv, I would go out at 3am and rug up with some blankets.
I think I'll be taking a couple of hot water bottles with me
Which reminds, I better go clean my banana lounge up!
All the best for tonight Niv- let us know how you go.
P.S. don't forget to take a notebook and pen and write down how many you observe as they come thru & your session time. I don't know if there's an easier way, but I keep track of them by doing that haystack thingy, you know with the 4 lines going one way and the fifth big line crossing them, lol.
had another look this morning and spotted 10 in a very short time from around 3.00am to 3.35am...will have another look tonight... thanks suzy it may well be worth it....
Here's a stack of images captured on Sunday morning at Heathcote LMDSS (ASV Dark Sky Site).
I count 17 Eta Aquarids and 19 others. The others don't all seem to be sporadic as five or so on the left side of the image can all be traced back to a point up higher on the right side. Any ideas - there are several related streams right? The true sporadics are generally fainter/shorter than the Eta Aquarids so a bit harder to find in this image without being able to 'blink' compare the individual shots.
I kept a Canon 6D with 24mm f1.4 lens (wide open) running constantly with 6 sec exposures at ISO6400 from 4am to 5:30am on an iOpton SkyTracker and then have aligned and maximum combined the frames with meteors. For a few of the brighter ones, the meteors were visible in two frames, one with the meteor itself and then the second the green train left behind.
I caught a few meteors on camera last night and was wondering why they look green in photos?
We had a great night here in Sale, Victoria, the clouds had mostly cleared by 2am so I decided to wake up my youngest two (aged 10 & 13) to watch them. We lay out on our decking wrapped up in doonas and ended up seeing between 30 and 50 meteors for the night! The girls were so excited they didn't even care that it was only 6'C!!!
Reports from dark sky sites in Australia (waves to Liz Gleeson and Adam Marsh) suggest rates of around 25 per hour (over 1 every 3 minutes) this morning, despite Moonlight interference. Many bright meteors with persistent trains. Suburban sites have reported 11 meteors an hour, if the new dust trail calculations are correct, then we may be in for a good morning, cloud permitting. Skippy Sky may be helpful for cloud predictions http://www.skippysky.com.au/Australia/
We had a great night here in Sale, Victoria, the clouds had mostly cleared by 2am so I decided to wake up my youngest two (aged 10 & 13) to watch them. We lay out on our decking wrapped up in doonas and ended up seeing between 30 and 50 meteors for the night! The girls were so excited they didn't even care that it was only 6'C!!!
Brrrrr!! Certainly was chilly here in Gippsland last night hey? (6/5/13), I'm located just out of Stratford (which is a lazy 30kms out of Sale, Vic) and was super impressed. I'd never seen a Meteor shower before and was wrapt that the weather was on our side. Over the years whenever there's been something awesome happening in the sky, the weather tends to dislike me. Not this time! I managed a few average images, here's hoping for another show tonight... fingers crossed.
Booooooooo it's a blanket of cloud out to the east here in Brisbane.
lynkim1: Sounds a great night the kids & family as a whole had! I wonder how they fared going to school the next morning . Personal day of leave perhaps? I can't help you as to why they look green in photos- maybe someone else can help?
Ian, many thanks for your contributions.
Ian, by the way writes the Astroblog site and also writes the Southern Sky Watch page.
Mozzie, that's an awesome half hour catch- look forward to hearing how you go tonight!
Andrew, Phil, Liz: Many thanks for contributing pics .
Phil, I can't help with your query- can anyone???
Andrew, you struck lucky getting a well producing shower for your first ever viewing of one! They're not always like this. Hope you're recording the count.
I'd given up hope of seeing any of this but this morning was walking back up the drive at 6am from picking up the paper and was looking in just the right place for a big white smoke tailed meteor hit over 20+ * at 45 * angle radiant to NW. And we had clear skies ! Just awesome.
Probably only one I'll get to see but it was spectacular.
Phil - "Eta-Lyrids" perhaps - their due to be active now with a peak on 8th May? Though my calculations say the radiant of eta-Lyrids would be about 5 degrees higher and 45 degrees left of eta-Aquarids (just below Vega).
I had no luck with Aqu's Sat morning 1am, and cloud last night *sigh*... lucky bugger ZeroId. I have seen a few in the past... something to remember always.
Thanks Suzy! I'm a long-time lurker of this forum lol Glad to finally have the courage to post. Nice to know I'm not the only one obsessed with the night sky haha!
Yep might set the alarm for early tomorrow morning & see how I go.
Welcome to IIS Sarah! Nice to have you on board.
Am a newbie too like yourself..lots to learn still but great fun along the way. Lurked around for ages myself before finally joining.
The IIS community is a wonderful one, a real wealth of information..
Enjoy your time here - here's to clear & cloudless skies.
I'd given up hope of seeing any of this but this morning was walking back up the drive at 6am from picking up the paper and was looking in just the right place for a big white smoke tailed meteor hit over 20+ * at 45 * angle radiant to NW. And we had clear skies ! Just awesome.
Probably only one I'll get to see but it was spectacular.
Wow Brent! - that would have been amazing to see!!
Lucky you. *very jealous*..
Alas, no luck here in Melbourne..grrrr, pesky clouds efficiently obliterated any chance of me seeing any at all...only thing achieved is one very sleep-deprived, grumpy girl. !
Brrrrr!! Certainly was chilly here in Gippsland last night hey? (6/5/13), I'm located just out of Stratford (which is a lazy 30kms out of Sale, Vic) and was super impressed. I'd never seen a Meteor shower before and was wrapt that the weather was on our side. Over the years whenever there's been something awesome happening in the sky, the weather tends to dislike me. Not this time! I managed a few average images, here's hoping for another show tonight... fingers crossed.
Nice to know there are a few locals interested in astronomy too!
We often have good clear skies... until the fog rolls in and spoils it for us. The icy cold mornings would probably put a few people off though. The first night I tested out my telescope I spent 4 hours outside with the thermometer in the negatives! I didn't even have gloves on but I couldn't drag myself away long enough to go find them
I started wrapping an old electric blanket over my telescope and bought myself an electric throw rug. I plan is to convert the throw rug into a dressing gown and get someone to make me a battery pack so I can ditch the cable
Hello again everyone
Well I was up this morning between 3-4am and all I can say is wow! A beautiful clear morning here in Ippy. Waaay better than my Sunday morning attempt. I lost count at 25 meteors, and saw 2 fireballs with smoke trails before I got a sore neck (hubby decided to use my "observing" chair from Sunday as a place to store his rotten fishing clothes haha)
Even saw another one out the window as I was getting back into bed lol!
Nice to know there are a few locals interested in astronomy too!
We often have good clear skies... until the fog rolls in and spoils it for us. The icy cold mornings would probably put a few people off though. The first night I tested out my telescope I spent 4 hours outside with the thermometer in the negatives! I didn't even have gloves on but I couldn't drag myself away long enough to go find them
I started wrapping an old electric blanket over my telescope and bought myself an electric throw rug. I plan is to convert the throw rug into a dressing gown and get someone to make me a battery pack so I can ditch the cable
Howdy neighbour! That's not a bad idea lynkim1, are there any electricians in the house?!
It sucks when the fog rolls in, especially when doing time lapse stuff! Grrrr! I had almost lost all sensation in my hands last night, the only thing I did notice was whilst collapsing my camera tripod, it felt as though the condensation had frozen over the metal tripod legs!!
I grabbed a few (hundred ) more images last night, I have posted links to the 4 or 5 that were worth editing in the Solar System Imaging section of this forum along with some added ramblings!
Last edited by ath; 07-05-2013 at 01:34 PM.
Reason: Added quote
. Personal day of leave perhaps? 
Glad to finally have the courage to post. Nice to know I'm not the only one obsessed with the night sky haha!
Howdy neighbour! That's not a bad idea lynkim1, are there any electricians in the house?! 
I had almost lost all sensation in my hands last night, the only thing I did notice was whilst collapsing my camera tripod, it felt as though the condensation had frozen over the metal tripod legs!!
) more images last night, I have posted links to the 4 or 5 that were worth editing in the Solar System Imaging section of this forum along with some added ramblings!
