Dave Tuc47 You wern't looking on the 16th were you?
Damn this is hard. So many firsts ok in no particular order.
1. Seeing Halley's comet on the 18th of March 1986, beautiful against the milkyway we could see then at 2am. My mum woke me up to see it on her birthday.
2. Observing Comet Hyakutake from 8 days after it's discovery till it dissappeared from view.
3. Watching the Leonids Meteor shower 16th, 17th and 18th of November 1998, although the best time was the morning of the 16th, the awesome display of very bright green meteors entering the atmosphere and leaving an awesome train of ionised particles which lasted minutes upon minutes. Following days were okay but no where near intense.
4. 2002 Solar Eclipse at ceduna, this was my first total eclipse and hopefully not my last.
5. 2001 Leonids were a nice display too lotsofmeteors countedover 300 in less than 30 minutes at one stage.
6. Seeing Saturn for the first time through my 4" telescope.
7. Seeing Jupiter for the first time through my 4" telescope.
8. Buying my Observatory for $250
9. Buying my 8" Telescope for $50
10. Being totally lit up by an unknown light source while observing at a dark site with my wife. We still have no idea where it came from.....
11. Seeing the impacts of shoemaker Levey 9 on Jupiter.
12. Watching comet Hale-bopp
13. Watching mercury and Venus transits.
14. Everytime I go out I am blown away by something new.
Dave Tuc47 You wern't looking on the 16th were you?
Andrew,
I think that was the date. A group from the ASV Meteor section travelled to Woomera and saw what I will always remember as the best meteor show I have ever seen.
I also went to Woomera in 2001 a lot more meteors, I lost count but there was a meteor in the sky no matter where I looked at any one time.
98 was better for me as it was first large and bright meteor storm so to speak I have seen.
Without a doubt, it has to be the 2002 total eclipse in Ceduna. It was dark cloud all afternoon, and then as the ecplise started, the cloud began to clear but still created only short viewing periods as the cloud scooted across the sky. Then, 4 seconds before totallity, the sun moved out from the clouds and gave us a spectacular view for the next minute. The 32 seconds of totallity was awesome!
It is at the same time the most spectacular and most sublime moment of my astromony adventures.
Can't remember the date maybe Wednesday 7 Decmber 2005, or the wednesday before or after...Definitely Wednesday!
1> MEGA METEOR!!! about 8:20pm just before twilight had ended, maybe mag -9 or brighter, flying 25degrees parallel to the horizon from the south to the W/N/W and over and beyound the Blue mts. Bright white/yellow and glissening. I was quick enough to grab the binos and take a close up. At first it looked like a plane because it was moving so steadily and parallel.
Sightings of this meteor were reported the next day on radio 702 ABC Syd. Only about 4 days before this another mega meteor was filmed over WA and was shown on the evening news.
I live in hope of seeing another one of these. (BTW, if anyone else saw this please let me know. I was not a member [IIS] back then).
2> Finding M22 and Omega Cen with Binos (before telescope).
This was the ultimate sence of discovery.
3> Seeing first Saturn and the the Moon in the same night with my new
scope. I remember doing this... for the rest of the night!
1. Like everyone else, my first sight of saturn through a scope was amazing.
2. Counting 30 shooting stars while lying on the sand dunes on a remote NSW beach. No binos, no scope, warm weather, no wind, a couple of beers and a couple of mates.
I also went to Woomera in 2001 a lot more meteors, I lost count but there was a meteor in the sky no matter where I looked at any one time.
3 out of 4 of us located at a dark country location north of Crystal Brook on a hill (located in the mid north of SA - about two or so hours drive from adelaide) counted *literally* nearly 2000 meteors in three hours of observing/counting, many of which were very bright and spectacular (vast majority around mag +2<0>-2 with many fireballs and 'squadrons' of fireballs even) leonids - a high percentage of them left long lasting trains (longest lasting was about 20min - thats a story in itself).
While dark, there were a few light domes on the horizons, jamestown ect. - have seen darker spots. And we had a highway with the odd road train to contend with nearby also.
The best hour was around 4am to 5am were we again *literally* counted 1102 leonids.
(while technically a group count, if you had been lying on the ground with 360 d peripherary you would of at least most of all of them - most were so long lasting and tracked so much of the sky - although we all faced slightly different but slightly converging fields, one would exclaim something giving the others time to turn and catch at least some of their paths and glowing trains. so we technically speaking individually saw most of the count.
One standout highlight, out of dozens, would be the way some of the earth grazing squadrons converged on the western horizon, specially towards dawn. I have never seen that so well illustrated any other time.
I have probably mentioned my highlights ad nuseaum in here - but i will add one more - I may of mentioned this one
and that would be the '97 Eta Aquarids - mine/our first dedicated and in earnest attempt at observing a meteor shower so it was special that way to me - but also it was an awesome show, the best ETA show I have ever seen and I have seen all (majority from dark sites) since (except last years properly)
highlight number one is the best diverging split simultaneous meteors I have ever seen - came out of a perfect single point in the sky (which is weird coz their not supposed to do that) with radiant pretty high, as 4 bright pretty (maybe all mag +1 ) meteors in the shape of perfect cross and travelled a decent similar distance of maybe 10d and left purple/ very weird coloured luminous/glowing trains in the shape of this cross that lasted for a long time - maybe 5 min or so - spooky!
And then the best daylight fireballs I have ever seen, in the now totally clear, bright dawn blue sky upon returning to Adelaide and unpacking the cars. two seperate pairs one pair went west, and the other went south. they were very billowing smoke and the rising sun was illuminating the smoke trains - AWESOME!
Hi all,
My road to damascus moment...
On a 1991 holiday in a town called Turgutreis on the Bodrum peninsula in Turkey. No streetlights, no moon - just so many stars that you could only lie back on the sandy beach and stare. Humbling and awe-inspiring all at once and all with just my naked eyes.
Never seen anything like it since - reckon I'll have to go to the dead centre to experience similar.
Went straight back to sunny Scotland and bought a cheap Tasco reflector and it's been downhill from there!!
Cheers
Doug
This is all your fault Dave47tuc - getting me all nostalgic about the leonids while looking for our counts from 2001 I came across a couple of shots that one of my co-observers took while we were there.
My mate Stewart Leffanue brought along his 35mm film camera - but unfortunately the only shutter release cable we had broke before he took his first shot. So he took a couple of shots anyway just by holding his finger down on the button, none of them for very long. This was taken very early on, before the show really bloomed i think - and remember it takes a VERY speccy bright meteor to even look mildly interesting on film - unlike digital were they all look very good.
There is some LP in the shot from one of the light bubbles - maybe from CB? I have enhanced the full shot and that is making it worse - cant figure out the star field tho - and i think it was a 28mm lens?
I have never put these on the net or anywhere before.
there is an unprocessed crop of the interesting meteor - there was lots of crazy looking unusual ones!
I havent experienced a good meteor shower myself. Any recommendations ?
Easy, next Thursday through to Sunday mornings try to get up after 2 am till dawn and you will see some Eta-Aquarids.
The stream is active now but these mornings may see higher rates. You will never know unless you look
Some of the best meteors i've seen come from this stream.
I will get the family up if I see activity and its clear on any of these mornings. My wife loves meteors, as I do.
It was great to read your story Kearn.
So many people missed it in 98 but made up for it in 2001.
Thankyou Dave I did 4 mornings for the '98 leonids (I was hardcore meteor shower observer back then)
mornings of 16th (15th UT) 17th (16th UT) 18th (17th UT) 19th (18th UT)
first three from dark sky sites - last one outer suburbia with pretty dark skies.
on the big morning, 17th local time, we did midnite till dawn :-))))) Stew again took some film photos (only 200 speed too i think?!!!) but it was after the action was mostly over http://southern-x.org/gallery-leonid98.html
I remember reading the 2001 leonids was the best meteor shower/storm viewable from Oz since the settlement of Australia!
The leonids this year are possibly going to be quite decent I read
otherwise the Geminids in dec are solid performers in my books - nice weather too!
During the SL9 impact. I'd set up with the hope of seeing the illumination of Europa which was in eclipse but clear of Jupiter when the K fragment was due to hit.
No flash of Europa but as time passed I was stunned to see the pillar of ejecta from the impact standing clear off Jupiters limb like a mountain! As the planet's rotation brought the impact site into direct view the pillar was replaced by a clear view of a tiny intensly dark spot. I spent at least a couple of hours watching it grow and evolve until I was clouded out.
The whole SL9 thing was exciting and I've made many other awe inspiring observations, as have we all. But nothing quite matches Jupiter's 'mountain'.
For me would be looking at the spectacular rings of Saturn, and as Patrick Moore says, one of the greatest planets in the solar system, and he is certainly right!
Secondly would be back in 1997, viewing comet Hale bopp. My first picture in astronomy.
maybe Wednesday 7 Decmber 2005, or the wednesday before or after...Definitely Wednesday!
for the rest of the night!
while looking for our counts from 2001 I came across a couple of shots that one of my co-observers took while we were there.
