Meteors in Orion

[mikemarotta]

23 March 2021 at 2049 to 2050 Central Time, I was viewing the Belt and Sword of Orion when a meteor fell through my field of view. It happens. Then another... oh wow... then a third! Goodness gracious.

[mikemarotta]

This has come up on this board, I believe, that a newbie has asked if anyone has seen a meteor fall while viewing the stars. I do not recall a lot of replies on that, but I believe that it is fairly common for being a random event.

I do not mean going out overnight for a known major shower and lying out on the deck chair. I mean having like a 1 degree or less field-of-view (FOV) and seeing a streak go through.

I have been observing regularly for about 18 months. If I can get three good nights in a row, I will go out one or more of them. Even last night - one clear night in a string of cloudy nights - I went out. If I do not have to work the next day (Fri-Sat or Sat-Sun), I will leave the telescope set up with a blanket over it and go out again at 3:00 AM if I feel like it. So, just to say, I get out to view; and in 18 months, just roughly, I have probably seen six meteor falls through my FOV. Last night's three in a row, a second or two apart, was exceptional.

(And just to note, with my F=660 mm and a standard 52-degree Ploessl 17mm ocular for 39X, I was at 1.34 degrees FOV.)

[notFritzArgelander]

Yes, meteors, satellites, all sort of things. I've never seen an autogyro pass through the field, though.

[Makuser]

Hi Mike. A nice report from you. And, I have spent hours outside looking for meteors during the showers. Mostly disappointing with my skies, yet on occasion I have seen a fireball (bolide). Thanks for your report Mike, and keep looking up.

[Bigzmey]

Yes, I get them quite frequently, while doing quick glances at the sky, or through EP (binos or scopes). In fact I catch more while observing other targets than when I look for them on purpose.

[prowler75]

I’ve had several times where a meteor flys across my field of view. Airplanes are another thing I seem to run into as well.

[Stratman]

23 March 2021 at 2049 to 2050 Central Time, I was viewing the Belt and Sword of Orion when a meteor fell through my field of view. It happens. Then another... oh wow... then a third! Goodness gracious.

I saw them as well!!! I wasn;t sure if they were meteors or Satellites

[mikemarotta]

I saw them as well!!! I wasn;t sure if they were meteors or Satellites

Yeah, the same thing occured to me, as well, because there were three in a row, like a string of satellites. I like satellites, myself, but I never mind getting stopped by a train, either. But, these, to me, were orange, irregular (not points of light) and moving downward, not across. But I thought about what I perceived, also, and considered satellites.

[mikemarotta]

Thanks to all. Does this speak to the commonality of meteors? After all, we are viewing under magnification and we know absolutely that the telescope reveals stars where the naked eye does not detect them. Does this apply here as well? Are meteor falls very common only we do not see them because (mostly) we are not looking and (more to the point), we are not looking through magnification ?

Some difference of opinion exists about the count of meteors.

About 25 million meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere every day (duck!). Most burn up and about 1 million kilograms of dust per day settles to the Earth's surface.
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast121/lectures/lec18.html
Scientists estimate that about 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of meteoritic material falls on Earth each day.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids- ... /in-depth/

Taking the upper figure (25*10^6) and Earth's surface area as 510 *10^6 SQ KM means that in any square 10 km on a side, five will enter your field through the course of any day.

Next question: does anyone have a meteor?
(I have several. Pictures to follow.)

[mikemarotta]

I met the seller, Michael Casper, through the numismatics markets where he had his main business. He said that he fell into the meteorites and it worked out for him.

I learned from numismatics that I am not a collector. A collector's passions are for (1) Completeness, (2) Condition, (3) Rarity, and (4) Value. If you want to collect meteorites, there are a five main classes: Iron, Stoney-Iron, and Stoney; and across those, Chondrites and Achondrites. As you can see, I stopped short...

But the Carbonaceous Chondrite intersects sets; and bearing carbon, as it does, speaks to the cosmological necessity of life.

Also a note about astronomy as imperialism: The Gibeon was found by white guys in 1836. Natives had been using its iron for untold millennia.