APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
User avatar
Chris Peterson
Abominable Snowman
Posts: 18622
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA

Re: How'd they do that?

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Oct 19, 2011 3:42 pm

geoffrey.landis wrote:But an equatorial mount for the sky, and then composite in the foreground later, is simpler.
That is the most common way to make this type of shot. Note, however, that the sky image is still a composite, as the camera used is limited to a maximum exposure time of only a few minutes- definitely not 90 minutes.

Alternatively, by keeping the exposure time to 30 seconds or so, star trailing is minimized and the exposures can simply be stacked after aligning on the stars, and combined with a single longer exposure to capture the foreground.
Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
https://www.cloudbait.com

DosBoot

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by DosBoot » Wed Oct 19, 2011 3:51 pm

Of course, it must be 42.
"The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was calculated by an enormous supercomputer over a period of 7.5 million years to be 42.
Unfortunately no one knows what the question is.
Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer was created, the size of a small planet, to use organic components, called "Earth."

User avatar
neufer
Vacationer at Tralfamadore
Posts: 18805
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:57 pm
Location: Alexandria, Virginia

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by neufer » Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:28 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Art Neuendorffer

coxric1

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by coxric1 » Wed Oct 19, 2011 4:52 pm

Has any thought been given to capturing any of these showers before they hit the atmosphere? If we have a good approximation as to when they will arrive, why not try to grab some of them in that super-gel?

User avatar
Chris Peterson
Abominable Snowman
Posts: 18622
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 11:13 pm
Location: Guffey, Colorado, USA

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by Chris Peterson » Wed Oct 19, 2011 5:10 pm

coxric1 wrote:Has any thought been given to capturing any of these showers before they hit the atmosphere? If we have a good approximation as to when they will arrive, why not try to grab some of them in that super-gel?
Particles large enough to produce meteors are too large to capture. But micrometeorites (dust) from showers are routinely captured by flying high altitude aircraft with sticky sheets on the wings, or similar techniques. And the microscopic (and occasionally not so microscopic) impacts from shower debris has been studied on various surfaces in space- some designed for that purpose, some not.

Even if we could capture larger particles in space, statistics make it hard. Even in the densest of meteor storms, any practical sized collection surface is unlikely to encounter even a single meteoroid. (Which is lucky, or else we'd not be able to operate satellites!)
Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
https://www.cloudbait.com

User avatar
neufer
Vacationer at Tralfamadore
Posts: 18805
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:57 pm
Location: Alexandria, Virginia

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by neufer » Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:09 pm

coxric1 wrote:
Has any thought been given to capturing any of these showers before they hit the atmosphere?

If we have a good approximation as to when they will arrive, why not try to grab some of them in that super-gel?
Or one could just wait until after they hit the atmosphere and try to grab some in home insulation:

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... on#p159920
Art Neuendorffer

Mike Sheffield

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by Mike Sheffield » Wed Oct 19, 2011 7:14 pm

I counted 46.

roberto nesci

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by roberto nesci » Wed Oct 19, 2011 8:15 pm

I saw 41 meteors

Mikey

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by Mikey » Wed Oct 19, 2011 10:15 pm

I counted 40 Meteors as well. My method was the fingers and toes two pass approach. Highly developed and absolutely accurate:roll:

saturn2

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by saturn2 » Thu Oct 20, 2011 2:07 am

Ann
Thanks by your explanation and the music video.
I think that the music is most beautiful of the Universe.

User avatar
Ann
4725 Å
Posts: 13872
Joined: Sat May 29, 2010 5:33 am

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by Ann » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:34 am

saturn2 wrote:Ann
Thanks by your explanation and the music video.
I think that the music is most beautiful of the Universe.
You are very welcome, saturn2! :D

Ann
Color Commentator

keerthi2kiran

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by keerthi2kiran » Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:35 am

The photographer says its 40!
http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/photos. ... otographer
The Draconids meteor shower in 2011 was unusually active when it reached the peak time on October 8. The above image is a composite result of wide-angle photos taken during 90 minutes of highest activity of the shower in the early evening of southern Spain. There are 40 meteors captured in this result. The Celtic ruins of Capote (4th century BC) was the imaging place of the photographer. Strong moonlight during the night hided away many of the faint Draconid meteors. The particles that caused these meteors were typically the size of a pebble and were expelled long ago from the nucleus of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. Most of the above meteors can be traced back to a single radiant emanating from the constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Click on the constellation icon above the image to see the celestial figures and labels. Juan Carlos Casado/Starryearth.com

Stas

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by Stas » Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:36 am

44 meteors

User avatar
geckzilla
Ocular Digitator
Posts: 9180
Joined: Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:42 pm
Location: Modesto, CA

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by geckzilla » Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:59 am

StarCuriousAero wrote:Why hello there Andromeda!

I counted 43 streaks, but I'm thinking that the extra long streak at the top of the image is in fact two meteor streaks overlaid, which puts my final answer/guess at 44 meteors. Although I wish the answer was 42 to give us another question to that ultimate answer. :-/
I thought about that but decided it was too unlikely for them to be so perfectly overlapped.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

User avatar
DavidLeodis
Perceptatron
Posts: 1169
Joined: Mon May 01, 2006 1:00 pm

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by DavidLeodis » Thu Oct 20, 2011 12:57 pm

I like the version of the image that shows the "celestial figures and labels" in Juan Carlos Casado's gallery in The World At Night (TWAN) website. It's well worth a look for those who have not seen it. :D

Edit added later. I have just found that the labelled version is brought up when moving a cursor over the image, so it's likely that most of you will probably have already seen it. Odd therefore that there seems to be no earlier comment(s) about that interesting version.
Last edited by DavidLeodis on Thu Oct 20, 2011 7:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

superdave

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by superdave » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:00 pm

I could only see 5---ones who said 40 or more must have been imagining them---no way! The overlay of the constellation figures doesn't help any.

User avatar
geckzilla
Ocular Digitator
Posts: 9180
Joined: Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:42 pm
Location: Modesto, CA

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by geckzilla » Thu Oct 20, 2011 8:41 pm

superdave wrote:I could only see 5---ones who said 40 or more must have been imagining them---no way! The overlay of the constellation figures doesn't help any.
Click the image and you can see a larger one. I suspect you need some form of corrective lenses, also. :ssmile:
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

User avatar
neufer
Vacationer at Tralfamadore
Posts: 18805
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:57 pm
Location: Alexandria, Virginia

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by neufer » Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:08 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
geckzilla wrote:
superdave wrote:
I could only see 5---ones who said 40 or more must have been imagining them---no way!
The overlay of the constellation figures doesn't help any.
Click the image and you can see a larger one. I suspect you need some form of corrective lenses, also. :ssmile:
superdave is no Einstein: http://bobeinstein.com/biography.htm
Art Neuendorffer

User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21593
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by bystander » Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:16 pm

Watching the Dragon Spit Fire
ESA Space Science | 2011 Oct 25
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
A Draconid meteor burns up as a fireball in the atmosphere of Earth on 8 Oct 2011.
This video catches the moment when a Draconid meteor exploded in Earth's atmosphere earlier this month. The dramatic footage comes from a campaign to observe this important meteor shower using aircraft to beat the clouds.

On the evening of Saturday 8 October, Earth plunged through a stream of dust and rocks that had been expelled into space by the comet Giacobini–Zinner. The resultant meteor shower lit the skies over Europe with shooting stars.

The display radiates from the constellation of Draco, The Dragon, giving the name of "Draconids" to this shower which occurs at the same time every year as the Earth passes through the debris trail. In 2011, however, there was a difference. Astronomers had predicted an unusually high numbers of meteors as Earth was due to encounter particularly dense patches of the cometary detritus.

Detlef Koschny, leader of the Meteor Research Group at ESA, led the Agency's involvement in a project to find out if the prediction was right.

With cameras and other equipment packed into two Falcon-20 research planes, Detlef's colleagues took to the skies over Europe to rise above the clouds and watch for meteors.

"The Draconids peaked as predicted. A small peak at 17:30 GMT and then a larger one at 20:05 GMT," says Detlef.

The two planes flew on parallel tracks roughly 100 km apart as the researchers pointed their cameras at the same volume of Earth's atmosphere. The data they collected will allow each meteor to be triangulated, to determine its altitude and trajectory. Typically, meteors burn up between 80-120 km above the ground, well above the cruising altitude of an airliner. This will give updated information about the meteor stream itself, and the way the comet ejected the material.

It has been calculated that most of the meteors hitting Earth that night were ejected by comet Giacobini–Zinner in 1900 and have been circling the Sun ever since.

The team also recorded the spectrum of at least one meteor, which will reveal its chemical composition.

The Draconid meteor stream is important to understand because, like other streams, it can pose a danger to orbiting spacecraft. The tiny impacts can damage solar panels or sensitive optics.

The Draconids tend to be overlooked in favour of more visible displays such as the Leonids in November. This could be a mistake according to Detlef: "The Draconids move more slowly relative to Earth, so we don't see all of the smaller ones burning up. But they are still there, probably as many in number as the Leonids, only its harder to find them."
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

Guest

Re: APOD: Draconid Meteors Over Spain (2011 Oct 19)

Post by Guest » Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:43 pm

40 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D