http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...rseids2003.htm

Perseids

Aug 12 = Peak

Rating = Very Strong

Speed = Fast

"nguk.." wrote in message
...
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...rseids2003.htm

Perseids

Aug 12 = Peak

Rating = Very Strong

Speed = Fast

Thanks for the reminder :-)
--
Petel .
02 M2 Buell.
C90-ZZR.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peteh1/website/index.html

"nguk.." wrote in message
Perseids

Aug 12 = Peak

Rating = Very Strong

Speed = Fast

Perfect weather too for sitting in the deckchair around midnight with a cool
beer and just gazing up into the sky. (I try to do this for the Perseids
every year but sometimes the weather is less than ideal).

Incidentally, I've noticed what I take to be Mars is particularly bright,
rising in the SE sky around 11.00 onwards these nights and then tracking NW.
I don't think I've ever seen anything so bright or so red in the sky.

I first noticed it a week or so ago. Last night, in spite of a full moon,
it was still very prominent.

- Tom.

Perfect weather too for sitting in the deckchair around midnight with a
cool
beer and just gazing up into the sky. (I try to do this for the Perseids
every year but sometimes the weather is less than ideal).

Incidentally, I've noticed what I take to be Mars is particularly bright,
rising in the SE sky around 11.00 onwards these nights and then tracking
NW.
I don't think I've ever seen anything so bright or so red in the sky.

I first noticed it a week or so ago. Last night, in spite of a full moon,
it was still very prominent.

- Tom.

Any idea what time this will be visible from in the south of france? I was
there last week (in the middle of nowhere so no light polution) and the sky
was stunning - never seen so many stars before living in Manchester! Anyway,
there are still some friends down there this week so I will text them to
tell them to have a look tonight :-)

"Dave" wrote in message
Any idea what time this will be visible from in the south of france? I was
there last week (in the middle of nowhere so no light polution) and the
sky
was stunning - never seen so many stars before living in Manchester!
Anyway,
there are still some friends down there this week so I will text them to
tell them to have a look tonight :-)

Not being particularly well versed in astronomy, it would only be a guess
but, being on the same longitude, I would have thought that they would view
it in the south of France at roughly the same time as we would. As I said
earlier, by 23.00 BST it's visible in the SE and then tracks roughly NW.

I'd stand to be corrected by anyone with more knowledge on the subject.

- Tom.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 15:44:08 +0100, Tom Bennett wrote:

... by 23.00 BST it's visible in the SE and then tracks roughly NW.

I'd stand to be corrected by anyone with more knowledge on the
subject.

From my sky mapping prog Mars will rise about 1000 BST in the SSE for
Marseille, then is more or less due South at 0300 BST. Find the moon
and look roughly 10 degrees to the left.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 21:18:34 GMT,
wrote:

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 11:59:29 +0100, "Tom Bennett"
wrote:

"nguk.." wrote in message
Perseids

Aug 12 = Peak

Rating = Very Strong

Speed = Fast

Perfect weather too for sitting in the deckchair around midnight with a cool
beer and just gazing up into the sky. (I try to do this for the Perseids
every year but sometimes the weather is less than ideal).

Incidentally, I've noticed what I take to be Mars is particularly bright,
rising in the SE sky around 11.00 onwards these nights and then tracking NW.
I don't think I've ever seen anything so bright or so red in the sky.

I first noticed it a week or so ago. Last night, in spite of a full moon,
it was still very prominent.

- Tom.



I don't have any expert knowledge of astronomy, so cannot vouch for
the veracity of the following information that represented an e-mail
message very recently forwarded to me by a friend (in the USA) who had
in turn obtained it from another e-mail source. I would be interested
to know from others if it is relevant to your observation! Apologies
if it turns out to be a load of rubbish!

Geoff (UK)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Close Encounter With Mars

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular.
This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that
will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in
recorded history.





The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the
way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit,
astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this
close to Earth in the last 5,000 years. The encounter will culminate
on
August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles and will be
(next
to the Moon) the brightest object in the night sky.

It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc
seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as
large
as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the
beginning
of August Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth
at
about 3 a.m. But, by the end of August when the two planets are
closest, Mars will rise
at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m.
That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that
no human eye has seen in recorded history.

So mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow
progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share with
your
children and grandchildren. No one alive today will ever see this
again.





Have now done some digging on the web.
Seems to be generally right!

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/mars...ew_021108.html
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...achingmars.htm

Geoff

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 21:18:34 GMT,
wrote:
....bits snipped
I don't have any expert knowledge of astronomy, so cannot vouch for
the veracity of the following information that represented an e-mail
message very recently forwarded to me by a friend (in the USA) who had
in turn obtained it from another e-mail source. I would be interested
to know from others if it is relevant to your observation! Apologies
if it turns out to be a load of rubbish!

Geoff (UK)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Close Encounter With Mars

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular.
This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that
will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in
recorded history.

there was a very spectacular preihelion of mars in 1959 IIRC
when it was visible for some weeks in the daytime, and very
brightly too, it was summer but I cant remeber quite when.

--
Martin Smith

"Martin Smith" wrote in message
k...
On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 21:18:34 GMT,
wrote:
...bits snipped
I don't have any expert knowledge of astronomy, so cannot vouch for
the veracity of the following information that represented an e-mail
message very recently forwarded to me by a friend (in the USA) who had
in turn obtained it from another e-mail source. I would be interested
to know from others if it is relevant to your observation! Apologies
if it turns out to be a load of rubbish!

Geoff (UK)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
Subject: Close Encounter With Mars

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular.
This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that
will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in
recorded history.

there was a very spectacular preihelion of mars in 1959 IIRC
when it was visible for some weeks in the daytime, and very
brightly too, it was summer but I cant remeber quite when.

--
Martin Smith

The maximum predicted magnitude of Mars this time round is -2.95. This is
significantly fainter than Venus, which at its brightest reaches about -4.7
or about 4 or 5 times as bright (magnitude is a "logarithmic" scale, each
increase by one unit being about 2.5 times brighter). Yet Venus itself is a
difficult daytime object and you need to know almost exactly where to look
in order to find it. Most people have never seen Venus in daylight, even
though the opportunity to do so comes around twice every two years (a month
or two either side of "inferior conjunction", Venus being at its brightest a
few weeks before and after passing between us and the sun). Chances of
seeing Mars with the unaided eye in daylight (except possibly at high
altitude where there is less scattered light from the atmosphere) are very
remote.

I seem to recall there was a daytime *comet* about that time. Is this event
what was recalled? Such an event would be truly spectacular as the comet
would also be fairly close to the sun in the sky, the heat from the close
approach being the cause of the comet's brightness. IIRC, there was a
daylight comet in the 19th century which passed so close to the sun that it
was seen to pass the solar disk in a matter of hours - some high-speed
flyby! Imagine how this would look through the SOHO instruments.
--
- Yokel -
oo oo
OOO OOO
OO 0 OO
) ( I ) (
) ( /\ ) (
Yokel @ Ashurst New Forest
SU 336 107 17m a.s.l.

"Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account.