General Chat

Perseid Meteor Shower will reach it's peak in the early hours of the morning (12th) in the UK and it will be the best display for years according to astronomers.

The Perseids (named so because they appear to come from the Perseus Constellation) is caused by pieces of debris from the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle.


http://www.mirror.co.uk/science/shooting-stars-fill-night-sky-8594522

We (Myself, OH, Grandson 1 and Granddaughter in Law) are going up to The Brecon Beacons to watch tonight.
http://www.breconbeacons.org/stargazing

It is cloudy at present, so we may not be lucky, but we give it a go every year.
It will be the first time G.D-in-Law will have ever seen one, if we are successful.


If you plan to go star gazing tonight, make sure that you are dressed up warm (as it gets very, very cold) with lots of layers, a comfy deck chair, a blanket or two. Take a flask of tea and some sandwiches and enjoy yourselves! :-) :-) :-)

and me :-D

We drove miles out into Salisbury Plain last year to get nothing but cricked necks :-D

We are planning to go to Whitelee Wind Farm tomorrow night
It's just along the road from our house

http://www.whiteleewindfarm.com/visitor_centre/whats_on/perseid_meteor_shower

WE'RE BACK! :-D

We ended up 35 miles away on the A4067 near the Cray Reservoir.
We pulled in at a lay-by on an isolated stretch of road and it was VERY dark! No lighting of any kind anywhere.


After leaving the boot open in order for us to have just enough light to put up table and chairs,make tea, and dole out the sandwiches, we sat there in about 6 layers of clothes, scarves, hats and gloves. Blankets too, as it was very cold with quite a bit of wind.


But horror of horrors, it was very overcast!
Nevertheless, we still saw a good few of them that were so bright you could see them through the clouds. Imagine how wonderful they would look in the pitch dark had the sky been clear!


We weren't there long though- Because it turned out that Granddaughter-In-Law is terrified of the DARK!! :-0 :-0 :-0
However, it did become very foggy, so we slowly made our way home again. :-D :-D :-D


As you can see by the time of this post, I will not be around in the morning methinks! :-D


~~~~~~~~ to Island :-) Sheila :-) and GL:-)



So! How did the rest of you get on?
Who went out? and who was able to see them?

Well done, Jem. Even if the young lady is scared of the dark, its one night she'll remember. We've never done anything like that. It wouldn't be easy finding Dark Skys in the crowded SE!

That sounds like an amazing thing to do Jem. G. is sure to remember it forever.
Hope superbaby was a good boy for Granny?

Thank you Det and Kandj :-) :-)

Hopefully G will remember the fun and not the terror! :-D :-D
We have done it every year for some time now, so Grandson 1 has seen loads.
One year the police turned up wanting to know what we were doing and then joined in! :-D


SuperBaby was with Daughter last night Kandj. She's Nanny and G's Mum is Nan, cos neither of them wanted to be called Granny! That way I stay Granny, so it's less confusing lol! :-D

I do hope SuperBaby behaved himself as Daughter does not like having no sleep! :-D


It's very overcast here again today and the weather forecast is giving rain. If it clears up, we may try again tonight in our usual local spot. The peak was last night, but at least some should be visible over the weekend.

Well I woke up about 4am and the sky was pretty clear so I went into the garden and saw a few.
Today has been an amazing day weatherwise so we might have a clear sky tonight
so I will look out again.

One year we were on a camp site in Cornwall and they came so fast we couldn't count them all. A really magical experience. :-D :-D :-D

Due to horrendous weather conditions, our venue for tonight has been cancelled. :-( :-(

We went outside, lovely starry sky but there was a cockup on the seating front so, as there is a limit to how long one can lean on the shed without getting a cricked neck, we came back indoors.
Saw a few and will try again tonight, although currently it is cloudy.
Have seen them a few times before but it is always exciting to see them again :-D

Oh that is a shame GL :-(

You may get another opportunity tomorrow night according to the news.

Lucky you Von :-)
Hope you are lucky again tonight

It's still very cloudy here and looking like rain, so I doubt we will go out.
It's not that good where we live because we are situated near and on a higher level from two large Retail Parks and a Rugby Stadium. So we have too much light polution.

I hope some of you will have more success.

At least you got to see some Island :-)

Yes it is always exciting no matter how many times you get to see them.
I was more than usually excited last night, as it was the first time we had gone anywhere where there was no light pollution at all.

We will keep on trying albeit locally :-D

Well, the sky cleared about an hour ago.
Went up into the attic bedroom but the velux windows are so dirty that I couldn't see out. !
It's really windy and I had to open the window wide and hold it open but, I saw at least 6 meteors in just a few minutes. ( due north)

It's too cold and blowy to stay for anymore than a few minutes at a time. Brrrr
:-D :-D :-D

Beautifully clear, bright starry night last night, when I looked out around 3 a.m.

Street lights have been turned back on in this area after complaints about pitch black nights in built up areas, so I took myself into the back garden, where it is not quite so bright and looked roughly eastwards and saw several displays in quite a short time.

Will look again tonight.

Hi Gwyn :-)

We had a very cloudy sky last night. Huge low fluffy whitish ones and as there was quite a strong wind, as the clouds were moving fast toward the east, what little sky that was visible made the stars look like they were all moving west!

I did manage to see 2 meteorites from our garden. Considering that we live in a very badly light polluted area and such a cloudy night, that was quite good.

We are hoping to go out somewhere later, as the sky is much clearer tonight. Not sure where, but probably not so far away as Thursday night.

Well I am just in!
Not a Perseid in sight tonight! :-0

OH and I went for a spin in the car to a dark mountain road between two villages, but it was very overcast. UK weather! What a shame!

Never mind, there's always..... THE ORIONIDS :-D :-D :-D
(Peak - October 21st)

https://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors

Hi Stargazers :-D

Did any of you get to see the Perseids this year?

We had planned a trip out to a place with not much light pollution on the peak night! But yet again no sky to be seen for thick clouds and drizzle.

Last night seemed the better option weather-wise, but after a clear day again it was very overcast when it got dark! So again we stayed in.


Then in the early hours, OH went outside and said that the sky is clear! :-|
It was too late by now to go anywhere, especially as we were in our PJs.


At about 1am I took a deck chair out our small garden which has limited sky space and a lot of light pollution.
But in the space of half an hour I saw no less than 20 Perseids - 18 of which were fantastic! There being no moon obviously helped this year.

Imagine what they would have looked like in areas with no light pollution! :-D

I have not been out to look, but will do so tonight.
I realise peak time has passed, but hopefully there will still be some displays to see.

Hi Gwyn :-)

I hope you do manage to get to see some tonight.
Although the peak has already been, we have until August 24th to be in with the chance of getting to see some.

Hopeless here at the moment. It's very overcast and pouring with rain!

Hope you are lucky Gwyn :-)