The sunset was wonderfully clear, something I’ve not seen much this year.  As twilight faded to darkness the slender crescent moon shines in west.  Tonight the stars came out and for awhile I enjoyed the bright winter constellations.  A few weeks past opposition Mars is bright. A wonderful sight through the telescope,  my first look at Mars this year.  Nice to get  some star time: a little astro-therapy.

2010 means the International Year of Astronomy has come to an end. Its been a fun year seeing the increased attention on the night sky and I hope some of this continues.

Of note this year is the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. As a Boy Scout for a number of years I was most fortunate to participate in many camping trips. The highlight being Philmont Scout Ranch. This vast wilderness area in New Mexico is still one of the premier adventures a Scout can make. Picture on the right is me, circa 1970s, at Philmont.

Scanned from an old color print given to me  last year. I love the background, the country there is beautiful. If you click the picture there is a bigger version – check out the era’s canvass backpack and sturdy aluminum frame. Oddly I still have this!

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!

Its 6 °F (-14 °C) outside, wind is light and the sky is clear. The bright winter stars fill the eastern sky, the always striking Pleiades glowing overhead. Yes I am crazy enough to spend all night in this under the stars. But not tonight. With snow on the ground and holiday lights glowing its the worst possible time for light pollution at my place. Lest you think I’m the only unstable person that would be out I direct you to the Yahoo Extreme Astronomy Group.

Tonight I enjoyed the stars while comparing  Sorel Conquest boots with older Itasca Iceberg III Pac boots. I wore the Sorels out during the Leonids so I knew they performed well in the mid 20s. But the ground was not snow packed or frozen that night. The Sorels are +1 size for me and feel good hiking about with thick socks. My Itascas are +2 size and feel big, like having clown shoes on. But for warmth they are the one. Despite the Sorel’s -40 °F rating they only have 400g thinsulate and are no match for the Itasca’s realistic -20 °F rating with its 1200g thinsulate and removable felt boot liner. Only thing better than these would be the Cabela Inferno™ 2000 Pac Boots.

Winter features the brightest stars of the night sky and wonderful deepsky objects. It also has some extremely cold conditions so it takes careful planning and dependable gear to enjoy it.

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.

Having a seriously geek moment tonight I was perusing the ‘official’ time zone data file found at ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/ There are two files there, a tzcode* archive and a tzdata* archive see (http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm for info).  My wandering there came about from a recent biongbiong.net post.

What I found interesting was the comment in the northamerica file located in the tzdata archive, qouting:

#    I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some
#    agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving
#    daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind.
#    I even object to the implication that I am wasting something
#    valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen.  As an admirer
#    of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to
#    reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving
#    scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager
#    to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make
#    them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves.
#
#    – Robertson Davies, The diary of Samuel Marchbanks,
#       Clarke, Irwin (1947), XIX, Sunday

Emphasis added by me,  I could not have said it better myself. So as everyone gets shocked again by the sudden loss of an hour of daylight, I ask “What do we gain by doing this daylight savings time crap?”.

This years Orionid meteor shower was predicted to have higher intensity than normal. With a possible broad peak the shower was observable for several days. Mother nature delivered a stunning knock-out punch to the midwest with a slow moving low pressure area being feed with moisture from defunct hurricane Rick.  We have been cloudy and rainy for days.

The live data from IMO suggests there was higher than normal activity, as predicted. Impressive modelling from the meteor scientists.