Happiness Is a Speedy Leonid

 

This bright Leonid meteor flared low in the northern sky below the Big Dipper at the start of dawn. Bob King

Maybe you felt the way I did when you got up at 4 a.m. to watch the Leonid meteor shower. The temperature was 14° F with a hearty wind. I donned all my warm weather gear, unlocked the door and snapped open a lawn lounger. As I eased back into the chair, the dotted outline of Leo the lion assumed a commanding position in the southeastern sky like Simba on the hilltop in the movie The Lion King.

Venus shines inside the tilted cone of zodiacal light, a phenomenon caused by sunlight that scatters off comet dust in the plane of the solar system. The meteor at top is a bright non-Leonid called a sporadic. Sporadic meteors are seen every night. Light-pollution-illuminated clouds are visible at right.  Bob King

Looking at the meteor-less sky I couldn't help but think "naw, this ain't gonna' happen." But not 10 minutes later a modest but spectacularly fast meteor shot straight out of the lion's mouth. Whoa! I huddled myself in the chair and waited, and by the time 45 minutes had flown by I counted nine more. Several Leonids were as bright as Mars or Jupiter and left glowing trains of ionized air in their wakes. Two made me shout out loud. 

High clouds fuzz up Venus and Spica which were in conjunction about 4° apart Tuesday morning (Nov. 17). At bottom, Mercury pops his head over ridge in brightening twilight. Bob King

All were so fast that you either saw them or didn't. Simple as that. At the end of my vigil, I got in the car to drive to a more open location to track down a telescopic comet at the start of morning twilight and photograph the zodiacal light, a tall finger of glowing comet dust that stands up from the eastern horizon near the start of dawn on fall mornings. 

The 2-day-old crescent shines above the American flag Monday evening (Nov. 16) during twilight. Bob King

Despite being subjected to the full force of the wind I couldn't have cared less. Having watched flaming flakes of Comet 55P/Temple-Tuttle (the "parent" comet of the Leonid shower) for an hour, joy made me invincible. Venus and Spica made a fine sight in the eastern sky in the growing light even as approaching clouds slowly soaked up the stars. Before leaving to return to bed I waited for Mercury to top the distant tree line like the last runner in a marathon. 

Sometimes happiness seems so easily attainable. I hope you had a good morning with the Leonids, too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Joy at Northern Nights Star Fest 2021

Image
A participant at Northern Nights Star Fest uses a filtered computer to monitor the progress of a photo taken through his telescope. Red filters preserve night vision. No white lights are allowed on the observing field during the event. Ben Huset   Last weekend I attended the 10th annual Northern Nights Star Fest  (NNSF) held by the Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS). Members flee light-polluted backyards and head north to Long Lake Conservation Center in north-central Minnesota to revel in dark skies. I spoke at the event and had the time of my life. We've all been a little starved of company the past year and a half because of COVID-19 fears. Getting together with other amateur astronomers for face-to-face conversation and to share the night sky was balm for all. I'm grateful the MAS provided the opportunity. MAS member Jerry Jones speaks Friday night about the work of Edward Pickering and the women at Harvard College Observatory to elucidate the properties of stars throug...
Read more

Last Minute Guide to Tonight's Lunar Eclipse and Aurora

Image
  The seven phases of the eclipse are listed at left with time zones across the top — EDT (Eastern Daylight); CDT (Central Daylight); MDT (Mountain Daylight); PDT (Pacific Daylight); Alaska Daylight (AKDT) and Hawai'i-Aleutian Standard Time (HAST). Find your time zone, then read down the column for your local times. Blank boxes indicate parts of the eclipse that won't be visible from that time zone. Here's a last quick look at the upcoming total lunar eclipse that will grace skies across the Americas Wednesday morning, May 26th . From most locations it occurs as night gives way to dawn. The table shows the local viewing times for six different time zones from the East Coast to Hawai'i. If you live in Denver, for example, the partial eclipse begins at 3:45 a.m. local time, with the moon entering total eclipse at 5:11 a.m. shortly before sunrise. Only folks living in the Pacific Time Zone and points west will see totality in a dark sky. Wednesday's dawn eclipse will r...
Read more

Inspiration4 an 'Early Bird' Last Night, Lands Today

Image
The Inspiration4 ship and crew pass beneath the bright star Altair around 8:42 p.m. Friday night, September 17. At the same time, Object-B, a rocket stage from an earlier Japanese satellite launch, crosses the same part of the sky.  Bob King Sometimes satellites and spacecraft don't show up at their predicted times. One of the main reasons this happens is when mission control decides to raise or lower the object's orbit by firing the ship's thrusters.  Last night, unbeknownst to most, SpaceX lowered the orbit of historic Inspiration4 space capsule sometime before or during its pass over the U.S. When a spacecraft's altitude is lowered, it appears lower in the sky and moves more quickly. A faster speed also means it will arrive in view earlier than the original time. The higher the orbit the more slowly the satellite travels, the same way Earth takes more time to circle the sun compared to Mercury.  I set up the camera a little more than 10 minutes in advance just to tes...
Read more