If you get a chance, wrap up warmly and pop out for a bit in the early morning to see the Orionid meteor shower. We’re passing through the debris field that is is the tail of Halley’s comet. We are near the peak, I’ve heard, which can be as many as 20 or so per hour. More here, and here.
-cvj
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Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
October 21st, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Definitely going to try and do this tonight (or tomorrow morning; whatever
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A friend and I did this a few years ago. I was staying at his place for an SCA event, and we got up in the middle of the night to watch them. We sat on his front porch for about an hour or so. Stupid thing is, we were both in shorts. We had coats on, but… *shorts*.
We froze our arses off, but it was worth it. Amazing to watch.
October 22nd, 2006 at 12:24 am
Damn…. it’s too overcast in Chicago to see them, I think.
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:53 am
Definitely worth it, the Orionids appear to be in outburst this year, and some places have reported up to 40 meteors and hour. My report and some Australian links are at astroblog. As the Orionid peak is broad, its worth going out tommorow night/morning and having a look. The meteors were fantastic.
October 22nd, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Well, darn. Last night when I posted my first comment, the sky was crystal clear – not a cloud in the sky.
My wife checked the skies at around 3am, and it was completely overcast. Grrr…
October 22nd, 2006 at 7:58 pm
I slept out under the stars last night with my astronomy class. The meteors were fantastic and we got some great views of saturn throught the telescope in the morning, but it was pretty cold here in Massachusetts. I woke up with my pillow completely covered in frost.