The Lyrid Meteor Shower
- Thread starter dfergie
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I caught some. it wasn't very impressive this year. 
But it's always cool catching a few meteors streaking across the sky.
The most impressive meteor I ever saw was in august 1997 or 1998 over the Mediterranean while on a cruise ship. I went to the bow of the ship where it was relatively dark. Those things are lit up brighter than Times Square, but I was determined to see some of the Perseid meteor shower. After 5 minutes this BRIGHT white streak if light moved across the sky turning yellow, then green then breaking up into 100 streamers of varying colors from green to yellow to white in all sorts of subtle variations before it disappeared below the horizon. The event literally covered half the sky in an arc nearly directly above me to the north of me. I never heard if any of this rock hit the Earth or Water. I have no idea how far away the meteor was from me when the show went below the horizon, but it looked to be only 100 miles or so and it was moving way to slow to be a "near miss." This thing was a rock, not a satellite. Why do I know this? Because I saw one of these too!
In the early 80's while standing outside a local hang-out with my brother and friends, my brother points over my shoulder and says "Look". When I turned around I saw a very slow moving (relative to meteors) white streak falling from the sky then turning yellow and breaking up into 5 or 6 yellow streaks and falling just beyond the horizon. In the news that night I discovered it was a spent Russian satellite falling back to Earth.
I don't think I will ever top that in a meteor sighting. But like the flaming astronomer with a bad toupee on PBS tells me, I keep looking up!
See ya
Tony
But it's always cool catching a few meteors streaking across the sky. The most impressive meteor I ever saw was in august 1997 or 1998 over the Mediterranean while on a cruise ship. I went to the bow of the ship where it was relatively dark. Those things are lit up brighter than Times Square, but I was determined to see some of the Perseid meteor shower. After 5 minutes this BRIGHT white streak if light moved across the sky turning yellow, then green then breaking up into 100 streamers of varying colors from green to yellow to white in all sorts of subtle variations before it disappeared below the horizon. The event literally covered half the sky in an arc nearly directly above me to the north of me. I never heard if any of this rock hit the Earth or Water. I have no idea how far away the meteor was from me when the show went below the horizon, but it looked to be only 100 miles or so and it was moving way to slow to be a "near miss." This thing was a rock, not a satellite. Why do I know this? Because I saw one of these too!
In the early 80's while standing outside a local hang-out with my brother and friends, my brother points over my shoulder and says "Look". When I turned around I saw a very slow moving (relative to meteors) white streak falling from the sky then turning yellow and breaking up into 5 or 6 yellow streaks and falling just beyond the horizon. In the news that night I discovered it was a spent Russian satellite falling back to Earth.
I don't think I will ever top that in a meteor sighting. But like the flaming astronomer with a bad toupee on PBS tells me, I keep looking up!
See ya
Tony
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