Anyone get out and see the Leonid meteor shower on Sunday? I'm a sucker for meteors, and this was the best show I've ever seen. The quantity was not up to the optimistic projections, but the quality was extraordinary. Peak was 5:00 to 5:15 AM New York time, I counted 60 meteors looking in one patch of sky. My informal rule is that I see about 10 percent of the official count (because I'm only looking at part of the sky and because I can't see some of the ones the cameras pick up). 2,400 per hour meets the definition of a "meteor storm" (>1,000 per hour) but was less than the 8,000 some people were predicting or the 100,000 people saw in 1966.I went to state line overlook, the highest point of Palisades Park in New Jersey, a 15 minute drive from my house. I would have gone another 20 miles north to Bear Mountain to lose all Manhattan lights, but Palisades is more family-friendly (I had my wife, 4-year old daughter and 8-year old son). It was perfectly clear with no moon, cool but not unpleasant bundled up and lying on blankets, with a thermos of hot chocolate.These were not the kind of meteors where you're not sure if you saw it or not. These were big, thick lights; brightly colored in red, green and yellow; with thick smoke trails. Some had small fireballs at the end. I have seen more meteors, but never such colors and trails. The kids were entranced (you can never be sure, and it's deflating to see a majestic natural display and hear "I'd rather be playing GameBoy").

"These were not the kind of meteors where you're not sure if you saw it or not. These were big, thick lights; brightly colored in red, green and yellow; with thick smoke trails. Some had small fireballs at the end. I have seen more meteors, but never such colors and trails."They were great. Large and colourful. One of the larger ones traced a path all the way from from north east to south west, then when it almost reached the horizon, there was a flash of light that lit the sky.

If you missed last year's Leonids, one of the great astronomical sights of your lifetime, Sunday or Monday night should be good for catching the Perseids. Look northeast from 2:00 AM to dawn on a dark horizon.No one is predicting this year's shower will be particularly spectacular, but such predictions are often wrong. The Perseids are the most reliable shower, you always see something, and they occur at a convenient time for watching in the northern latitudes.

I want a massive one to land in my backyard. Just big enough so that I can relax under its shadow, sipping coffee ........hopefully its also fresh copperish-red in its lustre....

becoming impotent, basking under the soothing radioactivity...geiger counter chirping in the background.......birds and small mammals dropping dead.....sorry! but i have a phobia of radioactive rocks dropping down on me!

"If you missed last year's Leonids, one of the great astronomical sights of your lifetime, Sunday or Monday night should be good for catching the Perseids. Look northeast from 2:00 AM to dawn on a dark horizon."AaronI'm going to be out of The Smoke and in the countryside this weekend, so this is a good opportunity for me. Is there a web-site I can look at so I can figure out when and where I should be looking from this side of the Atlantic?Thanks

Here are instructions from NASA (you can skip the part about building a space shuttle). There are lots of other good sites. Often local astronomy clubs will organize group events, which generally means hot cider and lots of people eager to explain things to you. I'm more of a solitary watcher myself, but it is fun to hear a crowd ooh and ahh over the nice ones.

I heard something about an unusually large asteroid (around 900m diameter) passing between the earth and the moon in the weeks to come.All I remember is that August 17th was the best time to catch a glimpse...Sorry I cannot be more precise, don't know much about astronomy!

Aaron, thanks a lot for this link. I've never been to the NASA site before. There's some great stuff, from hey-wow pictures to interesting (and weird) science. I'm only slightly disappointed not to be able to find the "How to build a space shuttle" section you mentioned. I've got a couple of spare evenings this week and thought I might give it a go ...

Last year: clear sky, 10 degrees C temperature, no moon: wonderful meteor shower.This year: 100% cloud cover, -5 degrees C temperature, nearly full moon: uncomfortable washout. I hear from others that the show was pretty good, but not as good as last years.I did hear the following exchange on Monday Night Football. For those who know the personalities, the game is announced by Al Michaels and John Madden. Madden is a successful former football coach (he was also a very successful coach, but has done even better since retiring). He refuses to fly, which is a big problem for a professional football coach, since the team plays in a different city nearly every week with the average distance to travel for games about 1,000 miles. I reproduce this dialog from memory, it is only approximate. But the real thing sounded even stupider than I can convey.John: Hey, there's going to be a meteor shower tonight.Al: Wow.John: I just heard about it, but you have to stay up late, get up early to see it. Maybe I'll watch it from the bus.Al: Too bad, I'll be in a plane.John: Well, it'll be below you. You can watch it from above. It's great, like fireworks.Al: Are you sure it's below me? How low do those things go? Maybe I should ride with you in your bus.John: When was the last meteor shower? This one's going to be the last one for 100 years. Anyone know when the last one was?This does bring to mind an interesting statistical argument about whether it was reasonable to conjecture that a meteorite destroyed TWA Flight 800 (July 17, 1996). There was no obvious explanation for the crash and many witnesses reported seeing a streak of light and hearing a sonic boom, both consistent with a meteor exploding. Other witnesses and evidence contradicted the reports. For those who are concerned, about 3,000 meteorites of substantial size hit the earth in an average month. A typical meteor breaks up at about 15 km up (higher than airplanes fly) when air pressure gets to about 200 g's (the bolide point). Most fragments burn up, but a few make it to the ground.An bus is probably safer than an airplane, because unless the meteor hit you or the driver, or possibly the fuel tank or steering mechanism, you should survive. Even if the bus crashed, you have a better than even chance. There are a lot more things to hit in an airplane, and a lot less chance of surviving a crash. Big meteor storms do cause warnings for satellites, which are much more at risk since they are not protected by the atmosphere.Still, even in a major meteor storm, the odds of a particular plane being hit are on the order of 100 million to 1 billion to one. On the other hand, with millions of flights in the last hundred years, it's not implausible that one airplane got hit. Given that all previous major commercial airline crashes have clear explanations, if you find one that doesn't, you can argue that it's not silly to consider meteors. Or, you can argue that it is silly (the side I happen to support). But there was a lot of argument at the time.

Aaron unmasks himself as a disciple Sherlock Holmes - when you have ruled out the possible, anything else, no matter how improbable is likely to be the cause.

QuoteOriginally posted by: csparkerAaron unmasks himself as a disciple Sherlock Holmes - when you have ruled out the possible, anything else, no matter how improbable is likely to be the cause.I do like Holmes, I also like Conan Doyle's other stories, and some of the wonderful non-Conan Doyle Holmes' stories. I appreciate your humorous misquotation of Holmes' version of Bayes' Rule. This is one of the most often misquoted lines because Holmes said it seven different times in different words:Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth (The Sign of Four). How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? (The Sign of Four) It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet). When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier). We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth (The Adventure of the Bruce Partington-Plans). It is impossible as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it wrong. (The Adventure of the Priority School). Improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still (Silver Blaze) .But the application is difficult. In the case of Flight 800 and the meteorite, you can frame the question as:(1) If no other obvious cause can be found for the crash of Flight 800, and it is consistent with the airplane being hit by a meteorite, what is the probability that it was hit by a meterorite? (approximate answer, 1 in 10,000,000)(2) What is the probability that at least one airplane crash since the beginning of flight was caused by a metorite? (approximate answer, 1 in 10) Given that at least one airplane crash was caused by a meteorite, what is the probability that the Flight 800 crash was caused by a meteorite (approximate answer, 1 in 100) This leads to an approximate answer of 1 in 1,000 instead of 1 in 10,000,000.

OK Aaron - how did you get all those quotes so fast. I can imagine you have the Complete Sherlock Holmes under your desk! Thanks for correcting me though.

A couple of questions that may skew the statistics about flight 800 and meteors. Was the earth passing through a meteor "field" at the time? Were any other meteors reported around the same time?

No, there were no unusual concentrations of meteors either expected or observed. That might tip the balance in a close call, but the opposing camps were "astronomical odds, no need to inquire further" and "improbable but worth spending some effort investigating."