Last year I searched for a iPhone meteor shower app and what I found was pretty poor.  Pathetic actually. So I decided to write one myself. Thus began a journey that has taken up much, no, all of my spare time the past months.

In the beginning I had grand ideas  carried over from an unfinished web project. Along the way I scaled back my expectations.  I don’t have the expertise yet. Just learning the intricacies and quirks of Objective-C was enough to keep me busy for many months.  This has been fun, I’ve not been so immersed in code and algorithms as this for a long, long time. I focused my attention and skills on a simple goal: write the best meteor shower app.

Over this time I have learned much more than I ever knew about meteor showers.  I can’t even count the number of technical articles I’ve read on them. Sometimes I wonder if that has changed my outlook. Before I simply enjoyed watching them, perhaps trying to capture them in a photograph. Now I ponder how to incorporate various data points into a table, how to quantify the duration of a meteor showers peak, why there is conflicting data on shower timing and intensity.

Tonight though I’m happy to say I have submitted version 1.0 of Meteor Shower Guide for approval in the Apple app store.  The waiting for approval begins.

First Flint Hills trip in 2011 and I doubt we could have had a better night that Thursday the 5th of May. The sky was crystal clear, very light wind with moderate temperatures.  For a change I setup north of Tetter’s rock, by a lone Osage Orange tree. Click the little picture on the right to see a larger version (looking south, note rock in distance).

The reason for my trip was the eta Aquariids meteor shower. I had never seen this meteor shower and my calculations (more on that in the future) suggested it would peak the morning of May 6th, shortly after sunrise . With a nearly new moon and clear skies the conditions were as good as they could be.

The eta Aquariids are remnants of Hally’s Comet. The radiants location in the sky and time of year heavily favors southern observers (south like Venezuela!).  Never the less one never knows, you have to go out and watch to see what develops.  There is not much to report, the shower is weak from +38 latitude. I did not see a single eta Aquariid meteor until about 3:00am. Which is expected. All together I noted 10 eta Aquariid meteors before darkness officially ended at 4:30 CDT.

Second year in a row I’m clouded out for the Geminid meteor shower. No dark site within hundreds of miles was clear.  Bummer.

The days are getting shorter and the nights longer. The final month of the year features two great night sky events worth catching. Both are late in the night to early in the morning but worth staying up for.

First up is the Geminid meteor shower peaking the night of December 13th, morning of the 14th.  Perhaps the finest meteor shower of the year its only drawback is the winter temperatures. But those of us willing to stand the cold are rewarded with a steady stream of falling stars. This year the moon is first quarter and will set around midnight local time. Just as its fully dark the meteor shower will be ramping up to full strength, around 120 meteors/hour (ZHR). With a clear dark sky you should see more than one per minute.

The second big event is a total lunar eclipse on December 21. Interestingly the 21st is also the Winter solstice: the shortest day of the year and the start of winter. Its been 2 years since the Midwest last saw a total lunar eclipse and we won’t see another until 2014!. But this one we’re in the right place, the Midwest is perfectly situation to see all stages of the eclipse. For a neat animation of these eclipse stages check out Shadow and Substance website. What dark color will the moon be this eclipse? Perhaps with this years volcanic eruptions we’ll see a deeper red.

Tonight is the peak of the Geminid meteor shower and its mostly cloudy and overcast. Not just at my place but every location I would have gone for observing. Bummer. From my backyard I observed several Geminids when the sky would clear momentarily.

Interestingly a news report recently posted by NASA says the Geminid shower has been growing in strength for  decades. Next years shower will be partially compromised by the 1st quarter moon, perhaps  it will be clear.

On a related weather note it was interesting to read the Weather Sealing review for the Canon 7D, with a brief mention of the 5D Mk II. My experience so far, in not so extreme conditions, is that the 5D Mk II holds up very well and with no problems from the cold or moisture.

Update 12.14.2009: early IMO data suggests the shower was very nice this year!

Location and timing are everything when observing meteors. This years Leonids were predicted to have higher than normal activity at peak, which unfortunately for me would occurred over Asia. However, one never knows what might happen with this infamous shower so I was intent on observing it. After monitoring weather conditions for days it was obvious I had to head west to find clear skies.

The image on the right (click for larger version) is looking south from my observing location at ‘Point of Rocks’ in Cimarron National Grassland . A Leonid meteor streaks through the sword of Orion over the town of Elkhart, Kansas. I directly observed this meteor and stopped the camera shooting sequence after seeing it. Whats amazing is that  I observed a fairly bright meteor streak across the sky and what the camera caught was this small streak. Capturing meteors is difficult!

My count of Leonid meteors was small, less than 10 per hour, which is about normal for this annual shower. As predicted a peak occurred over Asia and I bet it was a nice show. Below is a graph adapted from the IMO Leonid 2009 live data with my observing time frame highlighted. Timing is everything.