The Perseid Meteor Shower Returns August 12, 2010

The Perseid Meteor Shower Returns

On This Date in History:  When Lewis Swift of Marathon New York discovered a comet on July 16, 1862 he wrote that he observed a bright telescopic object.  However, he did not report it because he thought that he was simply observing the comet Schmidt.  Three days later, at the Harvard College Obervatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Horace Parnell Tuttle saw the same object, determined it was headed in a northward trajectory and made an official report.  Well, Swift caught wind of the announcement and realized that Tuttle’s comet was his comet and so he made an announcement so that he might get credit for making the discovery first. 

As it turns out, a bunch of people saw the comet.  Thomas Simmons observed on July 19 from Albany, New York that,  when first seen it appeared as a nebula considerably condensed at the centre, the light being intense enough to be easily observed when the wires of the micrometer were illuminated.”  Later in July, a whole bunch of astronomers made similar observations.  The astronomical community then set out to determine if it was indeed a new comet or the reappearance of one that had been seen before.  The looked to the 1737 Kegler comet and the 1750 comet Wargentin.  While there were similarities, most agreed that this was indeed a new comet.  It became known as the Swift-Tuttle comet which I suppose was a Solomonesque solution to the question of whom to give credit for its discovery.  After much calculating, the general consensus was that the period of the comet was 120 years.  So, in 1982, the earth breathlessly waited for the comet Swift-Tuttle.  

Perseus from Mythology

 Brian G. Marsden in 1971 had been studying the comet and made two predictions and studying the observational history of Swift-Tuttle.  One was that if the definitive orbit suggested came about based on the 1750 comet, then it would arrive in 1981.  But, he had also hypothesized that Swift-Tuttle had some things in common with the 1737 comet.  In the early 1990′s, Marsden published a new prediction based on the 1737 comet and, ff that rang true, then 1992 would be the date.  As it turns out, the 1992 date was correct.  But, some astronomers suggest that the 1862 calculations were not wrong, but instead, the comet had changed.  Apparently, when a comet streaks through space, it loses particles and when it zips around the sun, part of it is vaporized assymetrically which, in turn, can alter it’s orbit in an unpredictable manner.  With the 1992 observations in hand, data suggests that the comet Swift-Tuttle is identical to the 1737 comet Kegler.  So, maybe neither Swift or Tuttle discovered anything new. 

Comet Debris Trail

The trail of debris left behind a comet as it travels through its orbit doesn’t blow away as there is no wind in space.  So, when the earth goes through its annual orbit and moves through a particular old trail of a comet, then it runs into that debris.   When it does, the small suspended particles from the old comet trail pass through the earth’s atmosphere and burn up producing streaks of light to the earth-bound observer.  We call them shooting stars or, more properly, meteors.  When there is a flurry of meteor activity then it is referred to as a meteor shower.  Because the earth moves in a predictable orbit then one can predict each year when it will pass through the trail of a given comet.  To identify each meteor shower, the part of the sky, determined by the zodiac constellations, where the majority of meteors can be seen is used.  In the case of the comet Swift-Tuttle, that area is constellation Perseus; hence, it is known as the Perseid Meteor Shower. 

Perseus Not So Easy To Find

The earliest recording of the observation of the Perseid Meteor Shower dates back to around 36 AD in China.  It has been recorded periodically throughout history and annually since 1862.  The rate of meteors varies greatly from year to year but is highest in the few years directly after the comet’s passage.  While it’s debatable if Swfit and Tuttle really discovered a new comet, their observations did for the first time link a comet with meteor activity. 

Cassiopeia Easy To Find

Part of the variance in the intensity of meteor activity with the perseids appears to be due to an inconsistent mass distribution in the Perseid stream, most likely due to the earth encountering variations in the orbit of Swift-Tuttle over 2000 years.  While the perseids always come in early to mid August, the brightest, densest concentration of observation tends to vary.  In 1953,  the most frequent and brightest observations came Aug 8-12.  In 1956, the greatest display occured on Aug 6-7.  All of the studies show that there is an irregular mass distribution in the Perseid Stream.   This year, on this date, the Perseid Meteor Shower is expected to be at its height.   Tips for the Perseid Meteor Shower are to expect 50-80 meteors per hour near the constellation Perseus on August 12/13.   According the Sky and Telescope, this should be a good year for observing for the simple fact that it’s the first moonless sky for the peak of the perseids since 2007.

While the comet Swift-Tuttle last passed by 18 years ago, filaments of meteorites shed by the comet long ago may be a factor this year.  Sky and Telescope suggests that particles from the comet’s passage in 441 and 1479 may liven up this year’s display.  National Geographic also suggests we may be running into a “meteor clump.”   While the Perseids have been seen since July, the best time to observe in the Northern Hemisphere tonight will be between 11pm and dawn.  Look to the northeast.  The perseids will appear to streak outward from the edge of Perseus and Cassiopeia.  It’s best if you can get away from urban settings and find a dark, rural area where the sky is wide open and unobstructed.  If you miss it due to cloud cover or other obligations, you can still see the Perseids over the next few days.  The rate will probably fall by a quarter or a half from the peak for the next two days.   The latest a Perseid has been seen has been August 24.  Don’t worry about getting hit on the head.  Most meteorites are about the size of a pebble, become visible at 40 to 75 miles above the earth and disintigrate 30 to 60 miles above.

Weather Bottom Line:  Hopefully, you got some rain on Wednesday.  Some folks got some pretty good and decent downpours.  The frontal boundary that got close enough to help focus activity in our area is lifting north.  We may have an outlaw afternoon t’storm pop up but chances will go down for the next few days until a frontal system approaches late Saturday.  It should stick around enough to provide at least scattered activity on Sunday as well as Saturday afternoon and night.  I don’t think that it’s going to move through too far so it will only knock about 8-10 degrees off the mercury.  The rain activity will go off the board on Monday and Tuesday but that front will most likely be drawn back up on Wednesday and reintroduce rain chances.

Thanksgiving Conjunction Junction November 27, 2008

Will We Be Able To See The Conjunction Junction?

A warm and nice Thanksgiving is upon us. While we all have something to be thankful for, don’t forget about the weather. It’s been lousy until Wednesday and with highs in the upper 50′s to near 60, its the best day we’ve seen in weeks and maybe for several days to come.  We start to get some clouds in here on Friday and subsequently cooler air.  Saturday also will be on the cool side but keep in mind, that neither day will be too terribly cold.  Now, I”ve been telling you for days that the second half of the weekend will be chilly again but what I have kept from you is what happens after that.  While I said we stay cold into early next week, some of the data is trying to develop something interesting. There is no clear consensus as the data is not just inconsistent between sources, but also within each source itself.  It will be a rain turning to snow event and it will take another couple of days to show itself.  The elements are in place.  The question is if they come together properly…in conjunction if you will…which leads us to…

 

Conjunction Junction: We have a conjunction of planets going on. Not totally unusual but this one is a bit

Keep Your Eye to the Sky

 different in that the moon is going to cooperate. It’s going to be in a down phase. Not so sure that the weather will cooperate though because we’ve got that system coming in. But, if you have been wondering about those two “stars” that have been pretty close together in the sky the last few nights, you’ll want to read this little tidbit, courtesy of the folks at the Louisville National Weather Service:

Are you wondering what those two bright objects are in the Southwest sky during the evening? It is a conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter. A planetary conjunction refers to two planets that share the same right ascension in the sky’s dome.

With the exception of the sun and moon, Venus is the brightest light in the heavens and Jupiter is the second brightest.

Venus/Jupiter Will Be This Close

During previous recent conjunctions a bright moon nearby has washed out the

We May Have More Clouds Than This

brightness. For this conjunction only a waxing crescent moon will be nearby. A conjunction of the two brightest planets will not happen again until March of 2012.

On Sunday and Monday evening the two planets will only be 2 degrees apart. This is about the same width of the Moon or about the width of your finger at an arms length away.

Its Looked Like This in Recent Weeks

In case you are wondering it is possible for two planets to appear to merge into a single point of light. This is called an occultation. The last one occured in 1818. The next one will not occur until 2065.

The weather during the next several evenings looks fairly favorable for viewing this event. Just look where the sun has set. You will not be able to miss it.

Not the 1st Thanksgiving?

On This Date In History: We’ve all enjoyed Thanksgiving Dinner and we all probably learned in grade school that the first Thanksgiving involved the Pilgirms and the native Indians of North America. But, the real first official Thanksgiving Holiday was proclaimed on October 3,1863 by President Lincoln, calling for an annual day of national Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. The president used the opportunity to thank the Union Army for the reversal of fortune in the Union effort by the victory at Gettysburg. President Washington had declared a “national day of thanksgiving and prayer” in 1789, but it didn’t become an annual event. In fact, Thomas Jefferson thought that such national events of demonstration towards a deity was not appropriate. Other presidents agreed until President Lincoln’s decree. President Franklin Roosevelt tried what I call a political move in 1939 when he moved the holiday to the third Thursday. However, I suppose its plausible to argue that Lincoln’s initial declaration was rooted in politics. Anyway, FDR was hoping to extend the Christmas shopping season. I guess he thought that by moving Thanksgiving he could pull the wool over American’s eyes and use the psychology of calling a different day Thanksgiving to get them to spend more money. Anyway, Congress had enough of the foolishness and in 1941 put the national holiday back to where President Lincoln put it in the first place.

Hope you enjoyed yours and the nicest weather in weeks…and perhaps days to come.

Man Needs Help with Hiccups! Leonid Meteor Shower First Recorded in US; Cold, Lousy Weekend Ahead November 12, 2008

Rainfall Total Forecast Wed-Fri

Look for a break in the rain for the first half of Wednesday but then we get another round by afternoon and into the evening when we even could see a few thunderstorms. Rainfall should be heavier than we saw on Tuesday but should taper off to general rain and showers through Thursday morning. Moderating temperatures and perhaps some peeks of sunshine on Thursday. The only real change is that the data now supports what it did last Saturday, which is the front comes through on Friday night instead of Friday morning. So, we move to at least the mid 60′s on Friday before some rain returns with the front Friday night. One thing that has not changed is the lousy weekend. Cloudy skies and low 40′s for highs. A few insignificant snowflakes can’t be ruled out for Sunday morning. Then, another blast of unseasonably cold air moves in the Monday night. Looks like a cold spell by the middle of next week.

Hiccups Not Always Funny

HIccups! Everyone has had the hiccups for a brief time. It can be a cause for humor. But, its not funny at

Not All Remedies Work

all to have them for extended periods. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest recorded attack of hiccupping belongs to Charles Osborne. He was born in 1894 and began hiccuping in 1922. He continued to do so every 1.5 seconds until a February morning in 1990. The poor guy wasn’t able to enjoy his freedom from hiccuping for long. He died in May of 1991 as the holder for the awful record for continuous hiccuping at 69 years and 5 months. Let us hope that a man in our area does not suffer the same fate. He has been hiccuping for a year now and is desperate for a cure. Check out this story….24 hours after it aired, we received over 800 emails presenting good wishes and remedies. Perhaps he will be like Chuck Osborne and simply wake up one day in hiccuping silence. Let us hope it doesnt’ take 69 years! Here is the RAW VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MILTON BETTS Good luck Milton!

Leonids First Recorded US Observation 1799

On This Date in History: An American Astronomer was in the Florida Keys on a ship on this date in 1799 and he quickly wrote in his journal what he had seen. He wrote that the “whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with sky rockets, flying in an infinity of directions, and I was in constant expectation of some of them falling on the vessel. They continued until put out by the light of the sun after day break.” What he had seen was the Leonid Meteor Shower and it was the first recorded history of a meteor shower in North America.  The Peak for the Leonid Meteor Shower in 2008 is November 17.

Founder of Univ. of Arizona Tree Ring Laboratory

What I find more interesting about Andrew Ellicott Douglass is that he was not the only Andrew Ellicott Douglass of note. His son was a college president and his grandson, also Andrew Ellicott Douglass, was the guy who developed dendrochronology. What is that? It’s the notion that one can count the rings on a tree to determine it’s age and determine periods of drought and abundant precipitation. He was trying to find a correlation between sunspots and climate. That is the same type of work that continues today, often by skeptics of the anthropogenic global warming argument. Not only that, but this guy was working with the famous astronomer Percival Lowell but apparently split with him when he was skeptical of the idea that Mars had constructed canals. Douglass lived until 1962….about 95 years old. That means he lived long enough to see the advent of the space age. Too bad for him he didn’t live long enough to see that he was right about the Martian surface.

Derby Weather: Place or Show? Little Egypt and May-Day May 1, 2008

Does This Look Like A Camel?

The forecast as previously outlined is still generally in line with current thinking.  The clouds Wednesday and chilly start gave way to sunshine and temperatures pushing to 70 at the airport.  Pegasus Parade weather still looks great, though the parade balloons may require some muscle power as it will be pretty breezy as we get up toward 80 with partly cloudy skies.  The storm system is still approaching.  I’ll update the SPC severe outlook as it updates but I suspect it will be similar to what was posted previously.  We will probably see some scattered showers or t’showers on the roam for Friday afternoon but folks at the Oaks would have to be unlucky to get a passing storm.  Nevertheless, probably be a good idea to be prepared, just in case.  The main action still looks like Friday night into the first part of Saturday.  While most data does not support the idea of an enormous amount of rain, the infield may prove interesting.  It should be comfortable temperature wise on Derby Day but we still have an upper low that looks poised to pounce late Saturday afternoon.  It will do two things.  The first will be the leading edge of cooler air for Saturday night and Sunday.  The other thing, probably more important to Derby-goers, will be that it will bring the threat of some scattered showers or t’showers as it passes overhead.  I think the question here is the timing and it is possible that it’s tardy enough that the showers don’t invade until after the Derby, but if it comes through a few hours quicker,  then scattered showers may dampen a few races.  So, again, at this point its probably a good idea to be prepared.  It’s not a forecast that will end up in the winner’s circle, but also it won’t end up in the glue factory either.

On This Date In History:  In 1893, Chicago opened the Columbus Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the explorer’s voyage.  It was a financial disaster until word got out that a dancer calling herself Little Egypt supposedly showed up.  Word was that she did a belly dance nude!  But, apparently it may have been a scam.  The crowds did flock in and the fair was saved.  But most historians who bother to look up such things have had a difficult time finding any evidence that the woman ever existed.  There were belly dancers on the midway, but they were covered in long ethnic costumes.  One fair-goer complained that the women had “inordinately thick ankles and large, voluptuous feet.”  I’ve never heard of feet being described as “voluptuous.”  There were rumors of a naked Little Egypt at Coney Island and there was a woman who claimed to be Little Egypt who jumped out of a cake at a rich guy’s stag party at the Waldorf Astoria.  The stag party Little Egypt may be the source of the Chicago fair’s apparently mythological version because after the party, Little Egypts started popping up everywhere, including a Camel.  No word on if anyone found the camel’s feet to be “voluptuous.” 

The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair opened on this date and organizers decided to pay homage to the 1893 Columbus Fair when it used the world largest telescope in Wisconsin to capture the light from the star Arctus.  It is 40 light years away and so the light captured was the light emitted 40 years earlier when the Columbus fair opened.  The light was captured and focused on a photoelectric cell that in turn used the current to throw a switch that illuminated the fairgrounds.  Probably would have been more interesting to have a naked woman on a camel throw the switch.

May 1st is May Day.  While there are some pre-Christian roots to the day of celebration, the modern version has its roots in France in 1889 when a group of socialists decided to have an international worker’s day in commemoration of the HaymakerMarket riot in Chicago of three years earlier.  The socialists were honoring anarchist workers who were sentenced to death in Chicago for their involvement in the violence that erupted at a rally at the Haymaker Market that was supposed to be a protest of police violence against workers who were campaigning for an 8 hour work day.  Anyway, the day for some is sort of a labor day but instead it’s largely remembered for the military parades held in the Soviet Union…supposedly to honor the workers of the Communist regime but really was more of a forced honoring of Communist leadership.  During the Red Scare of the 1950′s, American leadership did some things in an effort to combat the “communist threat”.  For one thing, the term “under God” was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance and May 1, 1958 was designated as “Loyalty Day.”  Labor Day in the US has its origins in the late 19th Century by the American Labor movement to honor the economic and social achievement of American workers and is held on the first Monday in September.

Today, May-Day is marked by some in the world by protesting globalization and capitalism.  In other words, it still has a communist/socialist influence.  I guess a legacy of the Soviets were to mess up a perfectly good day on the calendar.