Perseid Meteor Shower

[sbk]

The Perseid meteor shower is set to have a terrific show this weekend, I am assuming it will be visible from Thailand but the bangkok post doesn't have anything.

From the Independent UK

A display of celestial fireworks is expected tonight and in the early hours of tomorrow as showers of "shooting stars" light up the night sky.

Astronomers are predicting that between 80 and 100 vibrant streaks of light an hour should be visible from the ground, even for observers who do not have binoculars or telescopes.

The light show, known as the Perseids, are not caused by real stars but by tiny meteors, objects the size of grains of sand, which burn up in spectacular fashion as they slam into the Earth's upper atmosphere. The meteors are travelling so fast - about 37 miles per second or 60 times the speed of a bullet - that they vaporise instantly as they hit the relatively thick atmospheric barrier that protects the Earth from the vacuum of space.

Claire Gilby, a spokeswoman for the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, said meteors could appear anywhere in the sky but the best view in Britain should be towards the north-east where the sky will be the darkest, away from the glare of a waning gibbous Moon.

There is no need for binoculars or telescopes because the naked eye provides a wider angle of view. And shooting stars are best seen from out of the corner of your eye due to the way that the eye's most light-sensitive nerve cells are arranged away from the central focal point of the retina.

"Weather permitting, the sensitivity and wide field of view of the human eye are perfect for watching the Perseids. So, to see the Perseids, all you need to do is sit back and watch the night sky," Ms Gilby said.

The Perseids appear every July and August as the Earth's orbit around the Sun crosses the dusty tail of the comet Swift-Turtle, whose centre or nucleus is many millions of miles away. It is these dust particles that burn up to produce the effect of shooting stars.......

The early hours are usually the best time to see the Perseids because this is when that point of the Earth begins to face the direction in which the meteors are coming from - the constellation Perseus.

As the Earth slowly rotates, the side facing the direction of its orbit around the Sun runs into more grains from the cometary tail. This direction is right overhead at dawn, which is why about twice as many shooting stars are seen before dawn than at sunset.

[AmeriThai]

It should be quite a spectacular sight out in the sticks where there's little to no lights like in the city, that is, assuming the smog layer isn't too thick. Lesser amounts of "shooting stars" should be visible now as well as several days after the peak. The Perseids shower is the most dazzling of the year.

[geoffphuket]

It should be quite a spectacular sight out in the sticks where there's little to no lights like in the city, that is, assuming the smog layer isn't too thick. Lesser amounts of "shooting stars" should be visible now as well as several days after the peak. The Perseids shower is the most dazzling of the year.

So are you saying it will be visible in Thailand ?

[terry57]

well ive been to koh phan gan,

actually i lived on thong nai pan bay in 1987 at a top place called nice beach.

the owner was called mr gracie, had a top son called kleang, a daughter, lovely wife and and 2000 dogs.

look i got to tell you, it was the best time of my life as there was hardly any backpackers and i had lots of times when it was just me at that bay with all the locals.

they treated me like i was there son and ill never forget that or them as i loved those people.

that was before all those fire twirling, acid taking, ectasy trip people come along playing that drugged out trance music and bloody destroyed the place.

now dont get me wrong people as im not a total square head as taken a few drugs in my time but only the wacky tabbacy sort of gear.

now i had one night on that beach were i smoked so much gunga that i seen lots of stars.

look, i seen that many stars that i thought that i was in the middle of a mediorite shower .

cricky's mate, that was some night i got to tell you and i never smoked gunga again.

not untill the next night anyway.

look some of you might think im making this story up but if you go out and see mr gracie at nice beach bungalows he will tell you this story himself.

here is another top of bit of info for you punters out there.

i could of been very bloody well off today if id only listened to mr gracie back in 87 as he was dirt poor only owning the land on the beach.

no one wanted it mate as you could not grow bleeding coconuts on it.

it was only good for frigging backpackers to sit on and they had no money then.

only had enough money to buy some wacky tabbacy as it was cheap.

anyway's, he told me that if i wanted to i could off bought some of that top beach front land and built some nice bungalows with him.

i had to come back to oz after 12 months for my work, and could not go in on his offer.

now what do you think happened to mr gracie ?

well this is what frigging happened to mr gracie.

mr gracie today is worth millons of dollars because every bloody backpacker in the world goes to had rinn for the full moon party and tong nai pan gets the over flow.

now i just had to tell you people that story as i dont think there are to many farang that are still around from that time as i knew them all.

cheers good friends

[Tywais]

Looks like it will be irrelevant anyway.

"August 7, 2006: Blame it on the Moon: The 2006 Perseid meteor shower is going to be a dud. Oh, Earth will pass through the Perseid meteoroid stream, as usual. And meteors will flit across the sky. But when the shower peaks on August 12th and 13th, the glare of the 87%-full Moon will overwhelm most Perseids, making them impossible to see."

Source: Science@NASA