Phil's Astronomy Amateur Page

What's been going on? Where have I been all this time? It's not at work, not in the conventional 9-to-5 sense anyway, though that does start in September so I'm looking forward to getting back into the 'rat-race'... unless I win the lottery first, of course!

It's been a while since I 'blogged' because all my efforts have been going into the web site. It became a bit of a labour of love (and more of a task than I originally envisaged) and it meant that this blog got ignored. So now it's time to change things!

This little ramble is going to be topical - it's about Meteor Showers and in particular the Perseids that half the world seems to have been following these last few days (which is great news for astronomy in general).
Of course, by the time you read this, it'll probably be too late to enjoy even the tail-end of the shower (it doesn't stop abruptly, it 'fades' in, reaches a peak (August 11th) then fades out again for another year). But there'll be other showers in October, November and December, so keep an eye on my 'What's on' articles on my web site.

As I say, much has been said about this particular shower in the press - well, it distracts from whatever devious or stupid things the governments are currently up to, doesn't it? - so what can I add that you may or may not know already?

Well, I could tell you that the Persids originate from the tail debris of Comet Swift-Tuttle which orbits the Sun once every 133 years or so and that even if it's cloudy, you can still 'watch' for meteors.
OK, you can't 'watch' for meteors in the normal sense but did you know that when a meteor breaks through the atmosphere and vapourises, it creates a RF (radio frequency) 'ping' which can be picked up on a FM radio or TV receiver? It sounds a little bit like a submarine's sonar echo! I've got to tell you though, that listening to that hiss for any length of time will likely drive you mad!

You can take this one step further (and preserve your sanity) by taking the audio output from your radio or TV and feeding it into the sound card on your PC where you will have installed a clever little piece of free software (BSTuner). Take it another step and another piece of software (Radio-Skypipe II) will filter out meteor occurrences based on their RF signature, and graph them for you so that you can actually see them. Magic! All you need is a PC with a Audio card and an internet connection.

Of course, in today's technologically advanced world, who on earth has a FM radio? Everyone listens to radio broadcasts on line, don't they? Well if that's you, you can also listen to the signals on-line and then feed them to your decoder if you like. See, it's made so easy.

So how do you do all of this? Well, I could explain it all again now but since I only just found out myself 2 days ago and have already committed it to the main website, I'm going to be lazy (!) and redirect you there for the details.
One of my pet projects in the near future, certainly before 20th-22nd October's Orionid shower, will be to get set up with a decent scanner and aerial just in case it's cloudy... Watch this space!

Meteor Watching

So what was I doing whilst God was emtying his Hoover bag into the upper atmosphere? Well, on Tuesday 11th, up to about midnight whilst the sky was clear, I was lying out in the garden with a notepad and pencil, gazing wistfully into the heavens in expectation. I'd seen lots of meteors before (they are one of my favourite sights as I've probably mentioned before) but the Perseids are the best of the year and to be honest I've really neglected my observing this year.

The key to pleasant observing, is to be warm and comfortable, and I was, thank you. Apart from the local midge population thinking I was a picnic.

From 22:40BST I started seeing really bright meteors. Not lots, maybe one every 10 minutes or so. With the exception of 3 sporadics travelling S>N across my zenith, all the rest were Perseids shooting out W, SW, S and SE. The best of 15 in total, went right overhead and lasted nearly 3 seconds in a gold/orange blaze more reminiscent of a November 5th rocket. It was the best I've ever seen. All the rest were impressive, all brighter than any of the stars in the sky, some brighter than Jupiter now rising in the Southern sky.

Wednesday 12th wasn't a great evening. It was 95% cloud most of the time. Having said that though, at about 23:20hrs a 'window' about 40 degrees square opened up above me (there IS a God!) and I could see the stars again. And just to make me happier, in the space of 15 minutes another 6 Perseids graced me with their brilliant displays. As the clouds closed in again just after midnight, one last brave Perseid streaked across the gap between cloudbanks as if to say 'goodnight'.

That evening should have been the 'peak' performance of the Perseid shower but it didn't stop many sky watchers braving it for a third night (and if it stays fine, I'll probably be out again tonight!)

So yesterday, Thursday 13th, as the shower was winding down, I was out there again, even pore 'comfortable' than the night before, covered in a waterproof picnic blanket to keep the damp off.
The skies were clear but the horizons from NW to E were very bright.

Results were about the same as Tuesday: A sporadic shot across from SE>NW and this heralded the arrival about half an hour later, of the Perseids. First one was really brightgoing straight overhead. The next was the faintest I'd seen in 3 days, again overhead. The following eight over the course of the next 80 minutes, were really bright, all shooting SW or S.

Throughout the three evenings I was keeping in touch with my new 'friends' on Twitter, particularly @NewburyAs, @Astronomer_Dave and @LouisS - this really is quite a good medium for sharing information.

I'd have liked to get some images of these meteors but I don't have a digital camera with a wide angle lens so that was a bit disappointing. Perhaps I'll be better prepared next time.