Where's Saturn? Is that a UFO--or the ISS? What's the name of that star? Get the answers from mySKY--a fun new astronomy helper from Meade. WEEKEND METEORS: Be alert for meteors this weekend. Earth is orbiting through a stream of dust from Halley's Comet, the source of the annual Orionid meteor shower. The best time to look is Sunday morning, Oct. 21st, during the hours before sunrise. If this year's display is like last year's, observers with dark skies can expect to count 20 to 50 meteors per hour: sky map. AURORA ALERT: What's better than a meteor shower? A meteor shower inside the aurora borealis. It could happen this weekend. A solar wind stream is buffeting Earth's magnetosphere and causing high-latitude geomagnetic storms. Here is last night's view from the United Kingdom's Shetland Islands: Photo details: Nikon D200, 18-70mm lens, ISO 400, f3.5, 30 seconds "I made this 30-second exposure using my Nikon D200," says photographer Austin Taylor. "Later, when I was analyzing the image, I noticed I had also caught three meteors." Take a look at the full-sized version. "They are faint, but they are there--this is an absolute first for me! Fantastic!" October 2007 Aurora Gallery [September Gallery] [Aurora Alerts] WEIRD ORIONIDS--NOT! (Updated: Oct. 19) "I've never seen anything like it," says veteran sky watcher Doug Zubenel. Last week on October 10th he was at the Okie-Tex star party when a handful of Orionid meteors raced across the sky one after another, all in a row: And then it happened again. And again! "All of these meteors traveled nearly the exact same path through the sky," he says. In total, he captured 16 streaks in a series of seven exposures spanning 70 minutes: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6. What could make meteors behave in such an odd fashion? It's simple. "They're not meteors," says Dr. Marco Langbroek of the Dutch Meteor Society. "Note how the line of trails is parallel to the celestial equator at approximately -7o declination. That is the geostationary belt. The streaks are flaring geostationary satellites." Indeed, autumn is the season for flaring geosats. Light from the equinox sun shines almost directly down on these equator-orbiting satellites producing bright glints and flares when sunbeams happen to strike a flat surface. "Geosat flares can rival the brighter stars in the sky," says veteran observer Jeff Umbarger. "They appear in a thin line near the celestial equator, lighting up and dimming down again like a string of diamonds slowly lit by flashlight." "I had a feeling something was 'not quite right' about these meteors," says Zubenel. On the bright side, these are the first photos of flaring geosats ever published on Spaceweather.com--a long overdue contribution. |