As I mentioned in my last post, the 2009 Perseids meteor shower peaks August 11-12. The best time to see the perseids (the peak of the peak) was early this morning...before dawn. I wasn't about to wake up at 4:00 AM (no one would go with me either), so my obliging boyfriend and I set out last night for a little bit of earthgrazing meteor-gazing.
Say what? Earthgrazers are unique meteors that skim the earth's atmosphere creating beautiful ribbons of color. Last night, between 9PM and 11PM, provided an opportune window of time to see Perseids' potential earthgrazers. We were lucky enough to see roughly six earthgrazers along with several satellites (somewhat tricky to spot but quite fascinating). Eathgrazers look like this:
Source: NASA
After reading and studying about them, it was fun to finally witness these dazzling meteors. If you haven't seen the Perseids yet, you should still be able to see them tonight. If you miss this shower all together, both the Draconids and the Orionids will grace our sky come October followed by November's Leonids and December's Geminids.
Who knows... it could be astronomically fun (stupid pun, I know). Cheers.
Who knows... it could be astronomically fun (stupid pun, I know). Cheers.
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