Starship Asterisk*

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ann wrote:A green meteor! Not bad!

Of the thousands of witness reports I've collected over the years, about 3/4 of fireballs are reported as green or green-blue. So actually, not seeing a bright meteor as green is what would be a little more unusual.

To me, if the meteors are visible but faint, they just look white. I've never seen a meteor that was bright enough to show color. But then, I live under very light-polluted skies.

Ann

Ann wrote:To me, if the meteors are visible but faint, they just look white. I've never seen a meteor that was bright enough to show color. But then, I live under very light-polluted skies.

Right- which is why I referred to fireballs (mag < -4) particularly. Ordinary meteors are usually observed as white, or occasionally slightly orange or yellow (especially slower shower meteors like Geminids). The situation is different with fireballs, which are commonly observed to be green- especially the sort of bright fireballs that light up the ground. Those are every bit as impressive in the middle of the brightest city as they are from a dark site.

I've never seen much more than a streak from meteors! That's OK though; I really don't want to get too close.

orin stepanek wrote:I've never seen much more than a streak from meteors! That's OK though; I really don't want to get too close.

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Orin, you must have watched the two hikers, with the surprise ending. The direct house hit was neat. I'll have to come back and watch some more, later.

orin stepanek wrote:I've never seen much more than a streak from meteors! That's OK though; I really don't want to get too close.

Not to worry- those bright fireballs are all many miles up in the sky. Most people who witness a really bright fireball describe it as one of the highlights of their life. I have people who report things they saw 50 years ago, and which they remember clearly still.

Beyond wrote: Orin, you must have watched the two hikers, with the surprise ending. The direct house hit was neat. I'll have to come back and watch some more, later.

I didn't see it and I didn't find it!

Chris Peterson wrote: Not to worry- those bright fireballs are all many miles up in the sky. Most people who witness a really bright fireball describe it as one of the highlights of their life. I have people who report things they saw 50 years ago, and which they remember clearly still.

I guess your right! I mean if you see it and you remember it; Your still alive! If it hits you; you probably didn't have time to see it anyway!

orin stepanek wrote:

Beyond wrote: Orin, you must have watched the two hikers, with the surprise ending. The direct house hit was neat. I'll have to come back and watch some more, later.

I didn't see it and I didn't find it!

Orin, after watching the first one, the one you posted, 9-choices will appear. Click the one in the middle, the meteor hitting the house. After that one plays, and the next batch appear, click on -mystery meteor-, on the left side. That's the hikers and the meteor with the surprise ending. Pay -close- attention at the end when the camera hits the ground. It's a bit boring until the meteor arrives.

Beyond wrote: Orin, after watching the first one, the one you posted, 9-choices will appear. Click the one in the middle, the meteor hitting the house. After that one plays, and the next batch appear, click on -mystery meteor-, on the left side. That's the hikers and the meteor with the surprise ending. Pay -close- attention at the end when the camera hits the ground. It's a bit boring until the meteor arrives.

OK after putting the video on full screen I was able to find it! Before there were only 4 choices. I imagine the hikers are OK; otherwise we probably wouldn't be watching their video.

orin stepanek wrote:

Beyond wrote: Orin, after watching the first one, the one you posted, 9-choices will appear. Click the one in the middle, the meteor hitting the house. After that one plays, and the next batch appear, click on -mystery meteor-, on the left side. That's the hikers and the meteor with the surprise ending. Pay -close- attention at the end when the camera hits the ground. It's a bit boring until the meteor arrives.

OK after putting the video on full screen I was able to find it! Before there were only 4 choices. I imagine the hikers are OK; otherwise we probably wouldn't be watching their video.

Orin, you didn't pay attention. The camera was -found- by the boulder, with no one around, and they haven't been seen since. You can see why, IF you pay attention at the end, after the camera ends up on the ground. That's why i said it has a surprise ending. The color is a clue to the surprise. You might want to magnify your screen somewhat. I normally run mine at 150%. You can see the surprise on the camera screen.

Beyond wrote: Orin, you didn't pay attention. The camera was -found- by the boulder, with no one around, and they haven't been seen since. You can see why, IF you pay attention at the end, after the camera ends up on the ground. That's why i said it has a surprise ending. The color is a clue to the surprise. You might want to magnify your screen somewhat. I normally run mine at 150%. You can see the surprise on the camera screen.

I really can't tell what happened! The picture is very sketchy like maybe someone stopped the camera from running at the end when something happened to them. You really can't tell what it was. I tried to download that youtube but I couldn't! I even paused the video at the moment and nothing is clear!

Here's the video! I still think what really happened has been tampered with!

orin stepanek wrote:

Beyond wrote: Orin, you didn't pay attention. The camera was -found- by the boulder, with no one around, and they haven't been seen since. You can see why, IF you pay attention at the end, after the camera ends up on the ground. That's why i said it has a surprise ending. The color is a clue to the surprise. You might want to magnify your screen somewhat. I normally run mine at 150%. You can see the surprise on the camera screen.

I really can't tell what happened! The picture is very sketchy like maybe someone stopped the camera from running at the end when something happened to them. You really can't tell what it was. I tried to download that youtube but I couldn't! I even paused the video at the moment and nothing is clear!

Ok, i guess I'll have to tell you. The surprise at the end, is a long (about 5-foot) thin green alien thingy that jumps out of the meteor and attacks the guy. That's why the woman is screaming and drops the camera. You can only see the alien briefly in the camera screen. Then it attacks the woman. You can tell that she is attacked because she stops screaming, and also because you can see the bottom portion of her legs by the camera and when the alien disappears from the camera screen, you see the front part of her shoes go up as she is being knocked backwards by the alien attacking her. Then the video stops. Someone made a decent special effects video. Of course the one who filmed the whole thing is never mentioned. Hey, it might have been the alien's partner filming the attack on the human thingys.

Beyond wrote:Ok, i guess I'll have to tell you. The surprise at the end, is a long (about 5-foot) thin green alien thingy that jumps out of the meteor and attacks the guy.

The good news is that, after almost 15 years studying meteors and meteorites (some very closely), this has never happened to me!

Ann wrote:At 12.53 in this Youtube video , you can hear a young boy shouting: I can see sky!!! Stars!!![/size]

That was me this morning! I could see sky!!! Stars!!! All the stars at once! And I saw Mars and Regulus!!!

No big deal, you think? That's because you haven't seen our night skies here in southern Sweden in November. We've had a ton of overcast skies! A mile of them! A gigahertz of them! A light-year of them!!!

But this morning I could see sky!!!! Stars!!!

Ann

On November 16, I made the post I'm quoting here. It's been two weeks since then, and this is what I've seen in the sky since then: A bleary Moon peering through clouds twice. The handle of the Big Dipper between clouds one morning. And yesterday, one and a half hours after sunset, as I was cycling home after work, I saw Jupiter shining brightly. After a little searching I saw the Summer Triangle high in the sky. Vega looked nice. But try as I might, I couldn't find the Big Dipper. I stopped where two streetlamps had gone out, which provided some relief from the light pollution. I also had a good view of the sky to the north. And there, finally, was the Big Dipper, and also Polaris. But would you believe I couldn't see Dubhe?

As I got inside, I found Capella from my kitchen window, looking east. Capella looked puny for such a bright star. Farther to the south was a yellow-orange star, and I brought out my binoculars to see if it was Betelgeuse or Aldebaran. My binoculars revealed the Hyades next to the star and thus identified Aldebaran. But try as I might, I couldn't find the Pleiades.

So the seeing was rather horrible last night, but at least we had some seeing. For most of the past two weeks, the sky has been completely overcast, or else we've been drowning in fog. I've cycled to to the train station and had fog settle on my glasses so that I could barely see. And a few days ago there was a pile-up on one of the major roads here in Skåne, due to the very thick fog.

November. Gaahh. For several years, I've been trying to see a Leonid. I've never seen a single one, because it's always been completely overcast when the Leonids were due.
I'd tell you that I hate November, if I didn't hate January and February so much more. (I can forgive December for being so cold and dark because of the festive feeling of that month.) But January is as dark as November and much colder, and in January we usually have snow. And if we don't have snow in January, we are sure to get it in February. I HATE SNOW!!!

But I think owlice has said that she likes snow, so I'll post this owl for her. Maybe the owl hates the snow, but I think it looks kind of cosy.






Ann

An average(for me anyway)sized white lighted meteor skimming the atmosphere, but it was going south! The first one I've ever seen going south. YAY!

Congrats on bagging another remarkable meteorite, Beyond!

(Ooops, sorry, a meteor!)

Here is southern Sweden, we've had a storm last night. The national weather service issued a class 3 warning, meaning the storm could case catastrophic damage. Well, I don't know. I can see that my windows look dirty after being blasted by none-too-clean rain all night, but otherwise everything looks normal as far as can see from my kitchen window. Even the Christmas decorations have stayed in place in the tree outside.
But, wowzers, I can see stars outside! I've seen, count'em, the Big Dipper, Capella, Jupiter, Regulus and Mars, Orion, Sirius and the Winter Triangle, the Hyades and the Pleiades. That's sort of good for southern Sweden in November. Of course it won't last. Clouds are on their way in over us, and tonight it will be overcast again. You say Venus can be seen in the twilight sky? Not here, it can't, let me tell you.

If you ask me, the Grinch who stole Christmas stole Venus too, at least from the skies of southern Sweden. :pouts:

(Admittedly it looks as if the Grinch stole Mars rather than Venus, judging from the color of the Christmas bauble that is dangling from the Grinch's hand. But I saw Mars in the sky this morning, so maybe the Grinch returned it to its Christmas tree in the sky and nicked Venus instead!)





Ann

P.S. I saw Saturn and Spica this morning, too! When I cycled to work. They are a pretty pair, and subtly but obviously colored. They were a first for me as a pair, so I guess the Grinch didn't steal them.

Hey, cheer-up Ann. At least you know what you are looking at... when you can see the sky. I'm pretty much limited to the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt, and it seems, a few meteors. Speaking of Orion's Belt, is there a name for the 3-stars that look like Orion's belt, but are not strung out as far as the Belt??

Where? Are you talking about stars close to Orion's belt or far away?

Well, they seem to be a little north of where i see Orion's belt. But I'm not sure if they come after or before the Belt, as i don't see them at the same time. When i see Orion's Belt, from N/E Connecticut, it's to the S/W through an opening in the tree line, most of the time. And when i see what looks like a smaller version of the Belt, i think orientated at a different angle, it's usually about due west of me. I haven't caught either one of them for a while now, but it been cloudy and raining a lot this summer and fall. Does that help at all?

Ann wrote:Congrats on bagging another remarkable meteorite, Beyond!

A meteor. He'd likely be much happier (and at least a little richer) if he'd bagged a meteorite. Unless, of course, it was actually a meteorwrong, which all too many turn out to be!

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ann wrote:Congrats on bagging another remarkable meteorite, Beyond!

A meteor. He'd likely be much happier (and at least a little richer) if he'd bagged a meteorite. Unless, of course, it was actually a meteorwrong, which all too many turn out to be!

Alas poor Yoricktor, I've only seen you from afar. Perhaps one day I'll hold you in my hand, as a Yorickite, and hope that you are not a Yorickwrong

TNT wrote:Where? Are you talking about stars close to Orion's belt or far away?

Well, they seem to be a little north of where i see Orion's belt. But I'm not sure if they come after or before the Belt, as i don't see them at the same time. When i see Orion's Belt, from N/E Connecticut, it's to the S/W through an opening in the tree line, most of the time. And when i see what looks like a smaller version of the Belt, i think orientated at a different angle, it's usually about due west of me. I haven't caught either one of them for a while now, but it been cloudy and raining a lot this summer and fall. Does that help at all?

At 5:45am this monday morning, through a hole in the clouds, i saw the smaller version of the 3-stars that look like Orion's Belt, just slightly south of due west, from the N/E corner of Connecticut. With outstretched arm, they were 4-inches above my western horizon, which is a l-o-n-g ridge. Sunset is about 20 minutes after the sun goes down behind the ridge.

I think I might know what you are talking about, but I doubt they have a name. Are these stars really bright, fairly bright, or not very bright?

TNT wrote:I think I might know what you are talking about, but I doubt they have a name. Are these stars really bright, fairly bright, or not very bright?

Hmm... they seem to be a bit smaller then Orion's Belt stars, so of course they would appear dimmer then Orion, but with the naked eye, they look just like the Belt. I think i first noticed them earlier in the year when there was a conversation about Orion's belt somewhere in the Asterisk*. I started paying more attention to the Belt. Sometime later it dawned on me that the Belt looked smaller. Realizing that rain wouldn't shrink star patterns, i deduced that it couldn't actually be the Belt. No sword either. I know there's a Big and Little dipper and you need help to see the small one because it is so faint. But i don't need any help at all to see a small Orion's Belt, without a sword.
If you know where Orion's belt would have been a 5:45am monday morning, then you would know where it is in relationship to the little belt.

The bright star here is Lambda Orionis. It hurts me a bit to show this black and white picture of it, since Lambda Orionis is the star that gave me my probably "bluest stellar experience ever", as I watched it through a telescope.

As you can see, there is a row of three small stars "below" Lambda Orionis. "Below" depends on the orientation of Orion in the sky, of course.


Lambda Orionis is "at the top" of Orion. It can be described as the "head" of Orion. But as you can see in this picture, there are three (bluish) naked-eye stars in a row at Orion's head. The brightest one is Lambda, at magnitude 3.5, the next one is Phi 1 at 4.4, and the top one is HD 36881 at 5.6, barely naked-eye visibility. The small stars between Lambda and Phi 1 are just not visible to the naked eye.

Could this configuration possibly be the "small belt" that you are talking about, Beyond?

Ann