back to article What a shower: METEORS will BLAZE a FIERY TRAIL across our skies

The BBC is pulling its annual trick of promising skygazers a "dazzling display" of Perseid meteors this week, as the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle. Peak meteor activity will be tomorrow night (Wednesday August 12) from around 2300 UK time, and enthusiasts can expect "at least one every few …

  1. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    Icon says it all ->

  2. Francis Vaughan

    Wrong title

    Clearly the title of the book should be "The British Book of Astronomical Flops."

    Generally a lovely view down here in the antipodes.

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Wrong title

      Looks like here in Spain will be good viewing too. Let's see if the Perseids deliver.

    2. Peter Simpson 1
      Unhappy

      Re: Wrong title

      Yeah? Well, enjoy it.

      Rain here today, predicted to last through Wednesday morning. You can pretty much use a meteor shower as a (rainy) weather forecast around here.

      1. Tony S

        Re: Wrong title

        It's unlikely I'll get to see anything here either (Persian Gulf). We generally get clear skies, but with the ever present dust in the atmosphere, only very bright items show up in the night sky. Even Jupiter / Mars / Venus are not always visible.

        At least it won't be raining though; forecast is no rain for the next 5 months.

    3. micheal

      Re: Wrong title

      Clearly the title of the book should be "The British Book of Astronomical Highlights

      cos it's as close as we'll ever get to seeing them

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Day Of The Pot Plants!

    The rhubarb's getting restless so i'm wearing my welding goggles tonight.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Day Of The Pot Plants!

      I prepared in advance! We had rhubarb crumple last weekend :-)

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Day Of The Pot Plants!

        Oh! I just spotted a highly appropriate typo! Rhubarb Crumple indeed!

  4. Thecowking

    I have my telescope and camera ready

    I'm expecting some truly spectacular low lying clouds and reflections of Cambridge's street lighting over the fens this week.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: I have my telescope and camera ready

      Cheltenham promises uniformly grey skies, the single distinguishable feature being the vague glimmer of a ball of fusioning hydrogen. I understand that in seven or eight hours time even that will no longer be visible through the murk.

  5. Chris Miller

    After a week of being promised cloudy skies, the forecast is looking good for tomorrow evening. If anyone wants to join me on top of Whiteleaf Cross (hot chocolate and marshmallows, what's not to like?), we're hoping for a great show!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The link (https://goo.gl/hdRC9D) takes me to a Google login page.

      I think to give people public access you have to include some URL parameters that correlate to the owner's credentials.

      1. Chris Miller

        Sorry about that (it works for me, even though it's not my page ...)

        Try here chilternsociety.org.uk and scroll down to the events list at the bottom (it's on the 12th, of course)

      2. illiad

        have you not used a 'comments' system that uses your gmail account to authenticate???

        If you don't want to , here is the url...

        https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Whiteleaf+Hill,+Whiteleaf+Way,+Princes+Risborough+HP27+0LN&hl=en-GB

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "have you not used a 'comments' system that uses your gmail account to authenticate???"

          I don't have a Google login or gmail account. I have noticed this problem elsewhere with web pages that use Google Calendar to advertise their events.

          Such a URL works ok when clicked on the calendar web page - but has to be modified before it will work when pasted in a browser's address box. The secret seems to be in retaining parameters for the registered email address for the calendar owner plus a calendar ID - but also removing some of the other keyword parameters.

          1. illiad

            It is worthwhile getting a gmail account - even if you don't use it! makes using other 'comments systems' a lot easier.. plus it has very good filtering options to stop spam... :)

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              "[...] even if you don't use it! makes using other 'comments systems' a lot easier.."

              That's the reason I don't have one. I never use the same login that can be correlated across several comment sites. If a site only allows Google, Facebook, or Twitter logins then I don't comment.

              Paranoid - moi?

  6. sandman

    Halley's Comet

    Agog with anticipation we queued for a couple of freezing hours in 1986 to get a look at it through an observatory telescope. You all know the punchline - yep, just a fuzzy dot against a lot of black. I thought about getting a t-shirt printed with just that and a big arrow pointing at it. You can make up the slogan yourselves ;-)

    1. DropBear

      Re: Halley's Comet

      True as that may be, let me tell you seeing a fuzzy dot with visible rings around it (Saturn, natch) with your own eyes (well, through a small telescope) is quite an awe-inspiring thing. Well, it was for me, anyway...

      1. ravenviz Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Halley's Comet

        I somehow managed to just glimpse Saturn's rings with a 2.5" refractor in the 80's! I was amazed that here was this 3D object right there, hanging in space. And I didn't even feel sick.

      2. Paul Kinsler

        Re: fuzzy dot with visible rings around it

        My son got an unremarkable telescope for xmas a year or so back (M&S kids special). Haven't yet managed to see Saturn as anything but a blurry dot, although the grey (light polluted) London skies are likely helping out there. Jupiter is a bigger dot, albeit one that you can't quite see any discernable stripes on, although the four big moons can be reliably seen.

        Best thing was a few months ago when I managed to get it lined up to see Venus as a crescent. Although aligning it manually is a bit of a barsteward, especially since things walk out of the field of view fairly quickly with the more powerful eyepiece in.

        Last year, with clear skies, I saw about one Persied every 10 minutes....

    2. Tom 13

      Re: Halley's Comet

      Yep, and yet it was still the most people we ever had when we held our open house at the Observatory on top of Davey Lab when I was in college.

      I've never understood why the Leonids gets hyped EVERY year. For my money the Orionids are a better shower. The storm associated with the Leonids is every 33 years, with the last one in 1999 and that one was a bust.

  7. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

    Other meteor showers are available.

    Competing with street lights, I've been seeing 4-5 in half an hour. But every night I've seen at least once Kappa Cygnids (started in Cygnus and headed across Cephus into Cassiopeia). Last Friday I was still seeing Beta Cassiopeids, too.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Other meteor showers are available.

      Last Friday I was still seeing Beta Cassiopeids, too

      I wouldn't worry, at least not until you start seeing Rosea Elephanti too.

  8. Sir Sham Cad

    Weather

    According to the always reliable, never wrong, BBC weather website the skies (here in the south east anyway) are clearing between 9pm and 11-ish pm tomorrow night so if I can just find somewhere locally in the wide open spaces of South London with low light pollution... fuck it, I've got no chance have I?

    May as well go to the pub and see if I can see any on the stagger home at kicking out time.

    1. Blank-Reg
      Trollface

      Re: Weather

      Whilst staggering home, watch out for meteors crash-landing, defying all atmospheric, cloudy and other odds to take you out from interstellar space!

      All done by the Universe in spite because you didn't make an effort to watch even though it was cloudy

    2. MassiveBob

      Re: Weather

      BBC - Top tips to view a meteor shower

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33858602

      Leave the country??

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Alien

        Re: Weather

        Well, even here in sunny Hemel we've managed the last couple of nights with ten or so an hour between eleven and one in the morning. Looks the usual cloud-fest for tonight, though :)

      2. DropBear
        Trollface

        Re: Weather

        "Leave the country??"

        It's 2015 and we are officially living in the future, dammit: just find a webcast...

        1. MassiveBob

          Re: Weather

          Metcheck has issued a weather warning for Thunderstorms/Heavy Rain/Gale Force Winds, starting tomorrow night and ending on Friday night.

          http://www.metcheck.com/UK/warnings.asp

          Like Neil says, I should have had a look last night but was too tired after another long(ish) day at the office and decided to go "tomorrow night".

          It seems I repeatedly forget to factor in the weather.

          It's either I'm too optimisitic or this is just my Britishness showing.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Weather

          "I'm sorry, the meteor shower webcast is currently unavailable due to unusual atmospheric activity caused by a meteor shower. We'll be back online in a few days..."

  9. eJ2095

    Isnt this?

    Where the triffids turns up?

    1. VinceH

      Re: Isnt this?

      No - the triffids should be already here, being farmed.

      This is where we all go blind and the triffids are able to take advantage.

  10. David Nash Silver badge

    BBC weather were recommending looking last night

    I wondered why they were a few days earlier than the peak but perhaps because they knew clouds were on the way in the following days. They didnt' mention this though.

  11. whitespacephil

    Look... London... Wednesday 9pm-midnight... Clear skies.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2643743

    Parliament Hill beckons for my trusty DSLR and a long exposure.

    1. Andy00ff00
      Coat

      Won't that get you arrested?

  12. Alistair
    Pint

    here up north of the 52nd

    We have some clear weather slated for tonight - 35 minutes north from here on sideroad there's a trailer with a BBQ and some adult beverages. And bugger all lights.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: here up north of the 52nd

      Many years ago we sometimes had a communal evening BBQ in the African veldt. It took a while for the logs to burn down to glowing embers - and daylight changes to darkness very quickly at those latitudes. On a moonless night the skies were black velvet covered with sparkling diamonds. When you put your steak on the mesh to cook you could see its outline against the charcoal's glow - but it proved impossible to see if it was rare or cinder charred.

  13. druck Silver badge
    Happy

    Last night

    Well I went out last night for half an hour just incase (haha) tonight was a bust, and in the quarter of the sky which wasn't covered in cloud, I saw one streak out of the corner of my eye - which I'm calling a great astronomical success for Cambridgeshire.

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Last night

      Frankly, I'm surprised you haven't had someone from the local paper out.

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