Cosmic Fireworks Tonight!!

I have never once missed it! I always stay up for this, and have been really pleasantly surprised by some of the things I've seen. I adore skywatching!! :multi: :clap: Get my telescope out (for looking at other things) and a blanket to lay on, then settle down in the middle of the street. Don't worry, I live on a quiet dead-end and nobody ever comes down it after 9pm.

 

The last time one of those showers had its 30-some-year peak, I happened to be living in the middle of a rainforest (so little lighting) with a nice clear space for vieweing at night. Talk about intense. There are meteor showers...and then there are ones at their peak.

 

Just came back from spending a few hours under the night sky. Even here in LA, with all the light pollution, I saw a few. A few years ago, I went up to the mountains to catch it. Really spectacular ones that year.

 

Don't do it! Triffids!!!

* runs off *

 

ROFLOL, Batavier!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: *loved that movie*


I always go way outside the city lights to view the meteor shower. I saw many satilights lastnight. And what's with all the planes that kept flying overhead?!?!?! Seemed to be more than usual, and their lights were distracting from the meteors. Grr. Oh well, I had a great time stargazing lastnight. ...nevermind that I had a hard time getting up for work this morning as a result (only to find that they didn't need me!!)... Always worth it, though. :mrgreen:

*is suddenly attacked by Triffids* GAH!! Help!

 

I stepped outside this morning just in time to see a big one streak across. I do wish that I had the free time to delve into astronomy.

 

It was raining cats and dogs when I went out this morning. Didn't get to see anything this year.

 

Not as bad as those unlucky people in the panhandle of Florida who might get two in a week. :mrgreen:

I'm just crossing my fingers...8 more days until I leave the hurricanes and move to the earthquakes. :mrgreen:

 

Heck, we've got weeks from when that storm floats off of Africa...of course we have about 3-5 days for when it's fairly certain. I do find it quite ironic, though, that the huge storms that threaten the gulf coast and east coast and carribbean are spawned from fronts that move over the Sahara.

Of course, as far as earthquakes, I can't say I'm all that concerned. With earthquakes, you can at least build things up, expecting the earthquake. You can do that for hurricanes too, but not nearly as much. Especially living in New Orleans, where our levee system would trap water in after a bad hurricane...the results of a category 4 or 5 hitting at a bad angle would, many sources project, keep the city flooded for 4-6 months. That's a disaster on a San Francisco earthquake/Chicago fire scale.

An interesting tidbit: The system of pumps that pushes the water back over the leeves during storms and pumps at the rate of half an inch an hour becomes the equivilent of the 10th largest river in the US when turned on.

 

True, things may fail...but I'd say that with current constructions, things are generally just better prepared. Of course, an earthquake of epic proportions could still bring even specially-built things down, but then so could a hurricane of epic proportions.

 

I was in high school in Portland in 62 when the Columbus Day Hurricane hit the Pacific Coast. It was ugly and I think only peaked at just over 100 in Portland. My memory is of my dad's barometer. I came home as a freshman and looked at it. The needle was visibly dropping. I had (have) never seen anything like that, and I hope I never do, One word of advice never ride out a hurricane in a mobile home. It is bad, very bad.

 

I've never been in a hurricane (my aunt & uncle are experiancing their first right now since moving to FL from CA), but I've been in many quakes, and have dodged falling trees and powerlines during our really bad fall windstorms.