Northern Taurid Meteor Shower
It's a minor shower, around 5 meteors per hour (average), but they known to produce nice bright, slow fireballs...great for photography.
Could also be good practice for the Leonids on November 17th.
copied from International Meteor Organization's website...
"Northern Taurids (NTA)
Active: September 25-November 25
Maximum: November 12 (λo = 230?)
ZHR = 5
Radiant: α = 58? δ = +22?
Radiant drift: see Table 6
v∞ = 29 km/s; r = 2.3
TFC: as Southern Taurids
These two streams form part of the complex associated with Comet 2P/Encke. Defining their radiants is best achieved by careful visual or telescopic plotting, or imaging recordings, since they are large and diffuse. For shower association, each radiant should be considered an oval area of ~ 20? x 10? right ascension times declination, centred on the radiant position for any given date. Their activity clearly dominates the Antihelion Source area's during the northern autumn, so much so that the ANT is considered inactive while they are present. The brightness and relative slowness of many shower meteors makes them ideal targets for still-imaging, while these factors coupled with low, steady, combined Taurid rates makes them excellent subjects for newcomers to practice their plotting techniques on. The activity of both showers produces an apparently plateau-like maximum for about ten days in early November, and they have a reputation for producing some excellently bright fireballs at times, although seemingly not in every year. As remarked earlier in the April to June quarterly notes, David Asher's studies have indicated that increased Taurid fireball rates probably result from a 'swarm' of larger particles within the Taurid stream complex, which in 2005 most recently produced a lot of, occasionally very brilliant, fireballs, and enhanced combined ZHRs of ~ 10-15 that persisted from about October 29 to November 10. The anticipated 2008 'swarm' return was still to come when this Calendar was in preparation, but no prediction for a repeat was in-force for 2009, perhaps just as well, with full Moon dominating the late October to early November core period (including the STA maximum) this time. The NTA peak has only a waning crescent Moon, however. With near-ecliptic radiants, all meteoricists can observe these streams, albeit northern hemisphere observers are somewhat better-placed, as here suitable radiant zenith distances persist for much of the night, though from the southern hemisphere, a good 3-5 hours' watching around local midnight is possible with Taurus well above the horizon"
So, basically, the moon's out of the way now, and we have nice clear skies tonight and tomorrow night(actual peak night).
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by forestgnome
It was only 23 feet wide, but could you imagine getting hit with something the size of a boat at about a bazillion miles per hour? That would ruin your day.
If I'm alive when that happens, I just hope I'm at the site of impact instead of living through the aftermath.
