We've had a busy week with a 4H sheep show, shopping night at the mall and a star gazing event. And every single thing was fun and worth the schedule juggling.
It started with L. getting her sheep ready for the Topsham Fair at the beginning of the week. Getting a couple of wool breed lambs ready for a show is time consuming, particularly when their wool is long and they lay about in shavings and hay everyday. But L. had the lambs in tip-top shape by Wednesday and I was very thankful to some 4H friends for picking up both her and her lambs to bring to the fair while I was at the office. I met L. at the fairgrounds an hour before her show and all went well. She had a great time and chatted with some friends she made at Ossipee Fair last month. That's another check in favor of 4H for us. The girls have quite a network of friends all around the state.
Last night was the Press Herald's Dash of Diva shopping night at the Maine Mall and a co-worker encouraged the girls and I to go. We had already planned to attend an event at Gilsland Farm sponsored by both Audubon and USM's Southworth Planetarium to watch the meteor showers (also known as the Perseid Meteor Shower) that happens at this time each year. We decided we could do both as the Audubon event didn't start until 8:30 p.m.
It was a festive night at the mall with lots of great discounts. The girls had their own money and were able to buy more than they had anticipated so all was well in their world. Of course the purchases did not include back to school clothing but Bath & Body Works body washes and creams, new headphones for mp3 players and a new pair of sneakers.
But even though excited about their new purchases, the girls were eager to get to the Audubon center to see the meteors.
We hiked the West Meadow Trail at Gilsland Farm - in the dark (not as hard as you'd think) - to the open field where Astronomer Edward Gleason from USM's Southworth Planetarium had several telescopes set up. He and a couple of other experts answered every question under the sun, err moon, about the night sky. We brought along a blanket to sit on but ended up laying on it instead to do our star gazing.
It actually struck our funny bones to look around and see about 50-60 people laying around an open field in the dark. Eric Hynes, Maine Audubon's staff naturalist, attempted to take a photograph of the "largest group to visit the Center at night" but getting a photo of a bunch of people in the dark just isn't so easy.
By the end of the night, the girls and I had made a list of the stars/constellations we could identify accurately during our evening:
* Venus (was just above the horizon at 9 p.m. and "set" by 10 p.m. from our point of view)
* Antares
* Big Dipper
* Polaris (a.k.a. North Star)
* Cassiopeia
* Draco
* Little Dipper (although a couple of stars were very dim so the full shape was hard to see)
* The "Summer Triangle" which includes Vega, Deneb and Altair
* Cygnus
* The square of Pegasus (couldn't see the whole thing)
* At least a dozen meteors with one that was as bright as any 4th of July fireworks burst
It takes practice to orientate yourself to the night sky and then remember where all those smaller, harder to identify stars and constellations are. But the kids feel like they're getting better at it and this event definitely helped. But we found it still isn't so easy to always stay oriented to the stars when you're laying on a blanket and watching the night sky for more than an hour (like we were this night). Everything moves around and can still get you confused. So just when you thought you knew where the Summer Triangle was, the bugger will move over the course of an hour and then you'll start second-guessing yourself you've got it figured out. We were reminded by one of the experts at this event that all the stars rotate around Polaris and the further away a constellation and/or star is, the "faster" it will appear to move in to a different position in the sky during the evening.
I don't have a good camera to take night shots but I had my cell phone and recorded some audio clips of our conversation laying around the field. I made it compatible with a YouTube video clip simply to have an easy format for me to share here.
But I offer the disclaimer that our conversation has plenty of our typical silliness. I was less concerned the girls focus on learning all the star names as much as I wanted them to simply enjoy the experience and see the meteors.
So when you hear the "shooting star" comment, know that the kids are aware it's just another word for meteor.
When you hear giggles about a mistake meteor that was in fact an airplane, know that my kid realized her mistake immediately but her sister and I had to giggle about it anyhow.
And when mom points out the Summer Triangle, my reference to "Vega, that star and that star" you'll understand we did sneak a peek at our star chart afterward (by the illumination of my cell phone screen) to verify the other star names after the clip. It just didn't seem important at the time to know the names as it was to simply know where the triangle actually was. Being a know-it-all isn't really my goal in life (although we do take the time afterward to get things figured out).
For more explanation about the Perseid Meteor Shower, I'll let the USM's Daily Astronomer email from Edward Gleason explain. He has a knack for making all things celestial more easily understood (usually with humor) for the everyday person.
As any comet travels near the Sun, the comet will sublimate: the ice is converted into a gas, creating a dust tail. (The solar wind also creates an ion tail, but let's cheerfully ignore this distracting detail.) During the comet's sojourn around the inner solar system, this outgassing will release vast quantities of dust into space. We call these liberated particles "meteoroids." Interplanetary space teems with these meteoroids. They constantly rain down through Earth's atmosphere, where they vaporize and glow, producing the light we see as "meteors."***
Currently, Earth is moving through the Swift-Tuttle debris stream. During this passage, countless meteoroids will plummet toward the planet's surface, reaching a velocity of more than 130,000 miles per hour. At this speed, friction will heat the particles to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This heat will vaporize the meteoroids, resulting in the lights we see as meteors. Yet, the actual light producting process is more than a simple reaction to heat. The meteoroid actually ablates, which excites its atoms. The electrons respond to this excitation by attaining higher energy orbits. When these electrons settle down, they emit the photons we see as meteors.
These meteors appear about 60 miles above Earth's surface, where the particles creating them travel at paths parallel to Earth's surface. However, they seem to originate from a specific point in the sky: an area called the "radiant." This radiant constantly drifts as the planet's orientation shifts relative to the debris stream. However, this wandering radiant always remains in the constellation Perseus, hence the name "Perseid Meteor Shower."
This shower promises to be an active one, with a peak meteor rate of more than 75 meteors an hour. The best time to observe on peak night (August 12-13) is after midnight, when our part of Earth turns into direction of the meteoroid flow.
***Here's a quick reference to help you distinguish between meteors, meteoroids, and meteorites:
Meteor: the light streak visible in the night sky. (This is a sight, not an object)
Meteoroid: a particle in outer space that would appear as a meteor if it descended through our atmosphere.
Meteorite: an outer space particle that survives its descent through the atmosphere and is found on Earth's surface.
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