DH and I were driving near downtown Raleigh last night, about 7:30pm and we saw a HUGE falling star! Seriously, it was so big, still not sure if it was a star, meteor or space trash falling??? You could see it coming across the sky, burning, and then it disintegrated right before our eyes! Wildest thing I've ever seen! 8)
Dang! I hate I missed it! I went out and looked for meteors in both of the recent meteor showers and saw none on the first one and just a very few on the last one. I saw the best meteor shower in December of '99. They were absolutely zooming across the sky by the dozens! (no there were no good drugs involved!)
I've always thought a cool New Year's or 4th of July would be for the Shuttle crew to take fifty or so pounds (I realize that alone would cost hundreds of thousands in propellent) of small steel, copper, zinc, etc shot and spray it much like a seed spreader over the US. . .if their orbit permitted. The different metals would burn upon re-entry with different colors. It might even be considered to use three metals that burned red, white, and yes, you guessed it, blue. opcorn: Being that the vast majority of "shooting stars" people see are sand grain or smaller in size, bird shot going <10% the speed of most space debris upon re-entry, it would be a long burn time. I realize the swath of re-entry of the shot would only be a couple hundred miles, but if done over a few highly populated areas, it could be a real PR event. :hurray:
740 Guy not sure that items traveling less than the current speed of space dust would leave a trail long enough to see. Though of course as the items got deeper into our atmosphere they would increase in speed compared to when they were "tossed out" of the shuttle which might increase the length of tail though I'm still not sure how much it would be. I mean Felix Baumgartner didn't leave a trail as he jumped from the edge of space and reached (questionably) the speed of sound durning his decent from Stratos
......on s different note..sorry.. Do they make binoculars that are more like a telescope?.. Or, what is the highest powered bino
You can find optics with all sorts of fields of view and focal lengths. Long focal length is used for high magnification, short focal length optics are usually used for wider fields of view. Binoculars are really just two relatively short focal length refractor telescopes that have been optically aligned and 'collapsed' into a 'z-path' for handheld convenience and to provide a bit of 3D perspective for "close" objects. The Redbull stuntman's top speed was well under 1000mph, nothing close to LEO or low earth orbit velocities, which are in the neighborhood of 17,500mph and certainly nothing approaching the velocity to achieve incandescence of his suit. Steel or metal shot being released by a LEO craft would be at orbital speeds and reach a slightly higher speed before beginning to burn upon re-entry. The particles you see in meter showers are entering at horrendous velocities in the neighborhood of 60,000mph and higher.
One thing that came to mind just now is predicting a shooting star. . . Since I haven’t done it in a couple years, I forgot to mention it. It’s quite impressive, IF the person or persons know nothing of what is happening. I’ve stunned a few people in the past doing it. I’ve impressed a date by calling up a falling star to wish on. :cheers: I’ve even scared a person in the past telling them I had hacked a satellite and could ignite the attitude nozzles with my cell phone. :twisted: Of course this was all quite unknown 10 or 12 years ago, so it was much easier to "impress". Here’s the explanation and how to do it; There is a somewhat defunct, but still functional satellite phone system known as Iridium Communications. It's a group of LEO satellites used for extremely hard to access places on earth like the poles, deep bush, ocean, etc. The unique aspect is these sats have a rather large and flat, door size pair of antennas at an approximate 45 degree angle to the ground. These antennas are highly reflective. The sats travel in an EXACT track and orientation that is easily predicted at any time. Thus you can know, to the second, where and when you will see the extremely bright reflection of the sun off the antennas. This is done from 30 minutes before, to a couple hours after sunset or sunrise. First go to Heaven's Above. Then the web app needs to know your location, so choose one of the ways to locate your EXACT latitude and longitude. Then go to 'Satellites', then to 'Iridium Flares'. You will be given the time, height (altitude), direction (azimuth) you will see the sat. Depending where you are in the track of the reflection, it may be just visible or extremely bright. . brighter than you've ever seen Venus, for example. It's moving quite fast, much like a fast moving high flying fighter plane. Numbers like -2 are quite dim all the way to -9 which are extremely bright. This time of year is great because the skies tend to be very dry and clear and it gets dark early. :hurray:
