Draconid Meteor Shower post-sunset tonight & tomorrow night. 10⁄8&9⁄15; 10 – 20 per/hr. (copied from my talk post) Hey you Skywatching Unilocalers! Get out now & see if the Draconids appear, weather permitting. Here in the SLO area, we had a colorful sunset with beautiful clouds, but those very same clouds are now blocking ¾ of the Sky so far. You can see many more details if you Goggle it on news, since it is viewable all over the US. It is one of the few showers that happen right after sunset, with no bright moon to drown them out. While the light pollution around here is not so great, if you get to the darker areas like Shell Beach, Avila, Edna Valley, etc… you may get some action. During one of the many recent blackouts here in Shell, I had the opportunity to discover that I could do crude Astrophotography with my old Pentax K5SLR, from my porch! I then bought this special GPS Pentax internal mirror tracking system, which attaches to the hot shoe, costs about $ 150, & is smaller than a mouse. It is a ingenious way to have the camera track the sky & get exposures up to a few minutes & thus getting tons of photons to imagine deep sky objects such as the Orion Nebula, the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, & star clusters. You can see the results of my primitive efforts in my profile pics(which are enlarged & enhanced), or my pics of Memory Beach Park. It is by far, no Hubble, but hey… who would know that you could even dream of doing this from your very own porch… but you have to stay up till the wee hours, study the heaven, & pray for less light pollution/clouds/moonlight/bright neighbors/planes/trains/automobiles…etc. Anyway, the Draconids(sounds like some sort of Alien Invaders… well maybe they are :), do not need anything special to be seen… just your 1 – 2 decent eyes(do not forget your glasses, not the reading ones), a dark patch of sky with few clouds, & a place to lay down on your back… sip a good Pinot, have some Brie on crackers… hmmmm… a typical Unilocaler! The Draconids are remnants of the stuff shed by Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner(say that 3x fast), which goes around the sun every 6.5 yrs… but the stream hits us annually. The shower can vary from Meh! to Fantastic & is hard to predict. Anyway, good luck stargazing tonight & tomorrow night… and do not forget the food, drink, comfy blanket/lawn chair, jacket, & your stuffed creature of choice(e.g. ET, Spock). Please remember to drink responsibly. Have fun! P. S.- Here at the Beach, if the clouds clear up, the fog stays away, & I do not fall asleep… maybe I/we will see some action. Hey you! NOFOOLINGAROUND :)
