Howards Astronomical Adventures

: Tales From The Night Sky

  • Geminid Meteor Shower

    Well <sigh>, mother nature just did not want to cooperate this year. I *did* get some viewing in with a few friends at my place. We got really good sky for about an hour, rest of the night was high clouds to thicker high clouds. Real bummer as the timing was great this year. I…

  • Backyard Orionids

    The 2023 Orionid (ORI) meteor shower peaked with no moon in the morning hours this year. There was clear skies and decent weather when I observed Sunday morning. I recorded 18 ORI meteors and 1 very nice Southern Taurid (STA) meteor in the two hours before darkness ended.

  • Okie-Tex Star Party: 2018 repeat

    Saturday morning September 16th and the 40th annual Okie-Tex Star party is officially over. And it was similar to the star party in 2018 unfortunately. The Oklahoma City astronomy club has been hosting a annual star party for forty years. For the past twenty five years it has been held in western Oklahoma by the…

  • Clouds for Perseids

    This year the Perseid meteor shower timing was very good with its usual peak time occurring after midnight for my timezone. The moon would be nearing new and not much of a factor. Unfortunately the weather pattern turned out to be cloudy. Below is the NWS satellite image just after midnight on the 13th. This…

  • Firefly Peak 2023

    Every year in my backyard the approach of summer brings a magical show. The night becomes more and more active with light emitting bugs. Most of us call them fireflies, or lightning bugs. I really enjoy sitting out and watching them. Over the past week I feel like it has reached peak firefly time around…

  • Bit Tired of Hyperbole

    This year my annoyance with astronomy exaggerations started off with the years first meteor shower, the Quadrantids (QUA). I ran across an article on LiveScience that starts out: How to watch the Quadrantids – one of the best meteor showers all year – on Jan. 2 and 3 I’m going to need a citation for…

  • Tau-Herculids: Observing Report

    In 1995 The comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann suddenly increased in brightness and broke up. This event was unexpected and due to its orbit being close to Earth the possibility of a future encounter with its debris could result in a meteor shower. Joe Rao wrote one such paper back in 2020 and many of us meteor observers…