Friday 11 December 2015

If You Are Interested In Astronomy,

on Sunday evening look to the skies,


the Geminid meteor shower will peak, it promises to be a great show, the best chance for viewing comes after the constellation Gemini rises, NASA is predicting an average of two meteors a minute over the course of the evening, for the best viewing experience, find an area unobstructed by a structure that is far away from city lights, using optical devices such as binoculars or telescopes is not recommended, as your field of view will be greatly restricted, thus making the possibility of missing a 'shooting star' more likely, 

a time lapse picture of the Geminid meteor shower from the NASA site, if you are in Thailand once you have settled down at your observation spot, face half-way up toward the northeastern portion of the sky, looking northeast, you will have the constellation of Perseus, the radiant of the Perseids shower, within your field of view, not coincidentally, the Perseids meteor shower is named after the constellation Perseus for the reason that they appear to originate from the sparkling Greek 'hero', looking directly up at the sky or into the radiant is not recommended since this is just the point in which they appear to come from, you are more likely to see a trail when looking slightly away from this point, looking half-way up into the sky should give you the best view, as an aside the Geminids are unusual, most meteor showers are from comet debris, not asteroids, but 3200 Phaethon is an unusually icy asteroid, which also sweeps in closer to the sun than the planet Mercury, the good news is that as that as it orbits every 1.4 years, it is not too much of a long wait to see it again.


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