Skywatchers' Journal

[Queso]

Look at that,

beautiful. Jupiter right there.

 

Last night I saw the most beautiful sunset of my life,

I was meditating on the beach,

And I took some LSD(first time in 3 months) so my whole

entire body

was vibrating in the key of OHM,

It was amazing, so amazing.

I was buzzing, in harmony with

the whole entire universe, anyway

From mine eyes (amd the chain reaction)

the rainbow sky was flashing,

And all the clouds were in fast forward,

morphing all over the place,

There were some surfers,

 

 

by a fire

of a flag, and woods,

I lay

and focus up @ all the stars,

that are dancing,

displaying before me the reason

why all those people

from the past saw bears,

and people with swords

up there,

but all I see is everything

in motion.

It's trips that got me to really

really understand how everything's

constantly in motion,

Not like this-

Then the moon came up,

and my shadow started whispering

thru the fire; Medium.

It sounded like a girl though,

The sky's really

really magical.

[Queso]

p.s. I was really buzzing in the key of A (220Hz)(weird, huh? :)),

I remember harmonizing with my vocal chords

and just feeling this insane energy

shoot off of me

clinging,

like fire does to

roof.

[Turtle]

Our recent heatwave, provides an excellent excuse to lay back in a chaise lounge in the yard and sky-gaze. Two nights ago I saw a pretty nice meteor & I watched last night a couple hours. Thinking we may have a known shower going on I checked with spaceweather today & found we indeed have a shower peaking tonight/tomorrow-night, and a mystery one at that.

METEOR SHOWER: The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on July 28th. Go outside before dawn on Friday, look south, and you could see a meteor every five minutes: sky map. No one knows where the Delta Aquarids come from. A dead comet? A shattered asteroid? Each streak of light is a mystery.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Keep looking skyward!:)

[Queso]

it's a new moon, too.

 

i'm totally going to watch the sky tonight.

[Turtle]

it's a new moon, too.

 

i'm totally going to watch the sky tonight.

 

By all means watch the Southern sky, but not for the Moon. When it is in the "new" phase, it is in the sky at the same time as the Sun & so invisible.

Jupiter is up now in the South however, & will stay in the sky several hours. The Southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower is also in the Southern sky & peaks in the few hours before dawn.

Eyes to the skys...:hyper:

[Jay-qu]

will it be visible for me? and since your looking south, should I look north?

[Queso]

Just look up, my friend.

 

See what you can see :hyper:

[Turtle]

I set my video camera on interval record last night in hopes of taping an Orionid meteor. I got one!

 

Camera is a Sony Handycam set on SuperNightshot and using interval record mode set to 1 minute intervals and 2 second duration.

 

YouTube - Fireball http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2tthlPXmno

[InfiniteNow]

I got one!

Wow!! That rocks! :)

 

 

When you wish upon a star... :(

[Jay-qu]

Nice! :( did you see it with your eyes aswell?

[Turtle]

Nice! :( did you see it with your eyes aswell?

 

Alas no...it occured at 5:20 am and I was sound asleep. I had failed the last 2 days (nights?) to stay up late enough to watch, so I decided to use the interval setting on the camera on the off chance of catching a meteor on tape. I only spotted it when reveiwing the tape this afternoon.

Chaos favors the prepared imagination.:)

[TheBigDog]

Awesome Turtle!

 

I once set up webcam to spy on #1 while he was grounded and I had to leave the house. I got this software free online that recorded constantly, but was motion sensitive. I could set it to keep x seconds before and after motion was detected/ended. If gave me great pictures of #1 sneaking downstairs to watch TV and play video games while I was out of the house. And I didn't have to pour over the 2 minutes that he actually stayed in his room. :(

 

Anyway, with software like that and a webcam you could point at the sky all night and only see the times that there is significant change on the screen, plus the desired before and after. It was very cool.

 

Bill

[Jay-qu]

I have been lucky enough to spy a few myself on a few occasions. Facinating to watch :(

[Turtle]

I have been lucky enough to spy a few myself on a few occasions. Facinating to watch :cup:

 

Excellent! How about a comet? I went out to check for comet SWAN a bit ago, but I have clouds to the West. While you will have to double check for the Southern Hemispere, it is visible in the Northern until around January. Plenty of time for me to try again to get my own blurry photo of it. :Waldo:

Here's some info on its discovery by SOHO and sky maps to find it:

 

The SWAN (Solar Wind ANisotropies) instrument is one of twelve onboard the SOHO (SOlar Heliospheric Observatory) satellite. It is a collaboration between the Finnish Meteorological Institute and Service d’Aeronomie and was constructed by the Finland’s Technical Research Centre. SWAN observes solar Lyman alpha radiation that is scattered by hydrogen atoms flowing into the solar system in all directions of the sky.

 

Comet Swan, designated C/2006 M4 (SWAN), is the eighth comet discovered with this instrument.

http://www.universetoday.com/2006/10/13/astrophoto-swan-song-for-a-comet/

 

Comet SWAN (C/2006 M4)

http://www.aerith.net/comet/weekly/current.html

[Turtle]

Besides the fascination of contemplating the heavens, we have a like fascination with the nomenclature. One has to look no further than the "Is Pluto a Planet?" debate to nod & wink at that affirmatively. Just so, tonight is the night of Long Nights Moon and it is an evocative denomination.

 

SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids *

 

 

* The link to spaceweather.com is only valid for any given story for a limited time. If you follow the link and do not find what you expect- in this case a story on the Long Nights Moon - go to the top-right corner of the main page and using the Archive function, enter the date/time of the stamp on this/my post(s).

 

Happy Long Nights Moon to you all, and may we all keep looking up and glow under the shine of the same light. :hihi:

[wine]

Twas absolutely beautiful from where I was breathing.

[Turtle]

Plenty to see in the night sky for the next few days; Michaelangelica has covered some of it in the Southern Hemisphere Skywatcher's Journal

 

The Geminid meteor shower is peaking tonight and we have a coronal mass ejection enroute so keep an eye out for aurora. :D

 

The most recent X class flare has sufficient energy to glitch out satellites, as apparently happened already to the NASA ACE spacecraft. Read more at SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids

 

My area is forecast to have clouds and rain so I'm not anticipating good air, but, as always, keep looking skyward!