witness a meteor shower

Well, the Lyrids are expected tonight, and as always the skies are closed for business. Reviews say the shower is weak too, so I’m going to hold off.

Next try:

The Eta Aquarids – 4th/5th May

It’s coming up soon, the peak being on the 22nd of this month.

We should be able to see the meteors at a rate of 10 per hour facing south, let’s just hope the British weather doesn’t ruin it again for me!

Comet PanSTARRS is going to be visible soon. If we can’t see it from the city then we’ll drive out.

I hope I don’t miss the next lot of meteors, but I will be in London that weekend. There will be a lot of light pollution – it’s London after all.

I will however be meeting WILLIAM SHATNER, I suppose I can wait for the next lot of meteors – I’ll never get a chance to meet Captain Kirk again!

Ok, so, there will be more in 2012.

October 20, 21 – Orionids Meteor Shower
November 17, 18 – Leonids Meteor Shower
December 13, 14 – Geminids Meteor Shower

Lets hope for clearer skies!

I’m so disappointed. We drove out of the city, and I knew it was a long shot, but we tried to search for some clear sky. It was so cloudy but we managed to find a small patch to the east (the direction we needed!) to see the meteors.

The clouds closed up pretty quickly, and we only really had 10 minutes viewing time, but we were out driving for ages because it was so misty and we got lost in the mist!

In that short window, we managed to see 3 meteors which I guess we were lucky to see since it was masked by the clouds.

We did also see two hares, two rabbits and a bat, so on the wildlife front we got our share…

Going to investigate the next lot of expected meteors.

This may come sooner than I thought. There is a meteor shower due on the 11th-14th of August so, I’ve put the predicted peak of the shower in my diary. We’re going to drive out of the city (we don’t have to go too far before we reach countryside) so there’s little light pollution, to make sure we don’t miss it.