Interesting Kurt...

Posted by Petewp on Oct 7, 2004

In all the years Ive done astronomy - Ive NEVER seen a bolide, fireball or what-have-you. Usually just the common garden variety [yeah the kind that lands in the daisies] that does a little streak - fade - occaisional afterglow trail. Never saw any through the restricted view of a telescope. The fact that Rob saw Red tho is a good indicator of the size of this mamma. Usually colors if illusuion will appear when contrasted next to an opposing color. Being that the sky "color" of a night sky is so very pale indeed, I'd lean toward the color being an accurate observation. Its odd how some people can see things and others very little. Meteors never really caught on with me. Usually just a peripheral streak of light seen while doing my more "important" deepsky studies. Its just where my interests lay that put it that way. Still, ive doine astronomy onand off for the last.... counting... counting... 26 years - almost always through reflecting telescopes, a little refractoir here and there. Damn it all - no fire balls for Pete!!!

I have seen a few weird things...

A full blown aruaral [damn how do you spell that] display 3 o'clock in the morning in Newtown CT. Looked like emmense green curtains tradiong and playing light intensitys and color intensites back and fourth among the folds. Ultimately all faded into a haze of a glow.

An airliner smack dab across the full width of the moon leaving behind a trasil of vortices distorting its images. Whats the odds of that???

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slamming into Jupiters surface had to be the most unusual of all tho. Every sunset for a while checking out the new spots or the old impact scars and seeing them morph. Cool stuff.

As an aside, I recall in the constellation Lyra, often just near the ring nebula - a deliberate path made by a star browing brighter then fading on and on as I followed its lumbering pace. I knew nothing about space junk and had everuy idea pop into my head about what it could have been but I NEVER gave into the UFO theory thing. To this day I credit myself that I was a calm analytical "astronomer" which made me feel all the better when a science teacher told me [weeks later when I could fess up my "secret find"] it was a satellite tumbling through space.

Damn I gotta take out the scopes again!!!!!!! Hell maybe Ill shoot up to Robs house take advantage of his insightful nature and the legendary dark skies Canada is said to have.

Pete

Pete

In Response to: Re: Off Topic: Kurt... by Kurt Maurer on Oct 7, 2004

Replies:

• Re: Interesting Kurt... by Petewp on Oct 7, 2004
• Re: Interesting Kurt... by Robert N Pruden on Oct 7, 2004
• Great Post, Pete! by Kurt Maurer on Oct 7, 2004
  • Re: Great Post, Pete! by Steve Miller on Oct 7, 2004
  • Re: Great Post, Pete! by Robert N Pruden on Oct 8, 2004