Perseid Meteor Shower Peak August 11-13, Moon-Free View August 17

For a bit of light in the darkness, look up until August 24th to see the Perseid meteor shower (pronounced "per-see-id"). The peak is August 11-13, where there will be an average of 75 meteors passing overhead each hour. 

Earthsky.org highlights that while the peak understandably gets a lot of attention, because of the moonlight the best time to skywatch for this event might be August 17th, when there won't be moonlight outshining the meteors.

Also, just as with any skywatching event it can be ideal to make the most of clear skies whenever they avail themselves.

More of Earthsky.org's tips can be found here.

Happy skywatching 🌠

Sources:

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-perseid-meteor-shower

https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/space-stargazing/meteors-comets-asteroids/Perseid-meteor-shower

Thanks to Reddit user mudgts for the head's up. 

Sunset Progression

Archived under October 10, 2017
Actually posted 2019-10-07

Sky Candy

Good evening all, and last evening of 2015!  For the last post of the year I thought maybe some sky-candy would be a nice wrap-up. Do you recognize any of the cloud types below by name?

Again apologies for the lack of posts and overflow of photos (more quality science posts are soon to come) but here's a small reminder of one the natural highlights throughout the winter months... cloudwatching! Warm colours of winter sunsets against icy landscapes here in Ontario leave not only vibrant colours, but also potentially sun pillars to keep an eye out for. (click the link to learn more about this natural phenomenon)

Have a happy and safe start to the new year :)

(One on the left look familiar?)

Sun Pillars

    Sometimes above the sun (or occasionally below), you may see a vertical beam of light stemming from the sun.

Sun Pillar

     This vertical light is an optical phenomenon called a light pillar, sun pillar, or sun dog.

     The most common occurrences of light pillars are avove the sun when it is close to the horizon, although it can also occur with other natural light sources such as planets or various artificial light sources.

     Certain conditions are necessary for a sun pillar to appear because the appearance of a light pillar is created by the reflection of light on horizontal ice crystals in the Earth's atmosphere. When the light reflects off the bottom of the horizontal ice crystals down to the eye or by total internal reflection (the same concept as bike reflectors), it creates the appearance of an upper light pillar (above the sun). This is why it is more common to see a light pillar when the sun is closer to the horizon. When it reflects off the top of a lower ice crystal and up to the eye, you would see a lower light pillar (under the sun).

     The visual result is a towering vertical line of light extending through the sky, of the same colour as the light source.

Sources

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halo/platpill.htm

http://optics.kulgun.net/SunPillar/

http://earthsky.org/earth/what-is-a-sun-pillar

(originally posted 19/11/2013)