Meteor Outburst Oct 8th 2011 - BUT Don't Get Too Excited

Hi all,

The below article was on spaceweather.com

ONE YEAR UNTIL THE METEOR OUTBURST: Every year around Oct. 8th, Earth passes through a minefield of dusty debris from Comet Giacobini-Zinner, source of the annual Draconid meteor shower. This year, forecasters expect Earth to narrowly miss several of the debris streams, resulting in no appreciable display for 2010. Next year, however, could be different. On Oct. 8, 2011, Earth will have a near head-on collision with a tendril of dust, setting off a strong outburst of as many as 750 meteors per hour. People in Europe, Africa and the Middle East will have a front-row seat for what could be the strongest shower since the Leonid storms a decade ago.

Now for the bad news, this event (if predictions are correct) coincides with a 90% waxing gibbous moon which is up most of that night and only sets at 04:50 on the morning of the 9th.

Neill

Neill wrote:

Hi all,Now for the bad news, this event (if predictions are correct) coincides with a 90% waxing gibbous moon which is up most of that night and only sets at 04:50 on the morning of the 9th.

Neill

ah for f... sake, there is always something !! :bricks:
still worth a look though.

On a slightly positive note, the moon is in Aquarius that night, so at least its not in Draco itself. Its an interesting astronomy event in Ireland, it will rain :devil:

This event was highlighted tima and again at the recent IMC Conference with the IMO looking for lots of data due to this unique interaction.

Visually, it won't get as good as one would hope but with radar and radio it should work a treat.

Seanie.