Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

Last night I drove out into the countryside (sort of) to check out this year’s Perseid meteor shower. It was a pretty nice night and I was able to see a decent number of meteors, but because of the brightness of the waning gibbous moon, the viewing was not favorable. It was also a bit hazy which spread the moon’s light. I thought that my camera might have caught a few streaks, but sadly, nada.

I thought a few of the shots I took turned out ok. The image at right shows the silhouette of the tree I was hiding behind so as to avoid some of the moon’s light. If you want to see a few pics from the night’s sky, see my Flickr set: 2006 Perseids. The larger views (available there) look pretty nice… if you are in to that sort of thing.

The Perseids occur when the earth’s orbit passes through dust and debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. They are called the Perseids because the radiant point (the location where all the meteors appear or originate from) is in the constellation Perseus. Usually the Perseids put on a great show, but because of the nearly full moon this year, viewing was hindered. Maybe next year will be more fruitful!

Resources:
Wikipedia - Perseids
NASA - Perseid Earthgrazers