Tuesday 7 May 2019

The Eta-Aqurid meteor shower of 2019

Well, we got kind of excited about seeing the Eta-Aquarid meteor shower.

There had been a report about it on SBS news last night as well as coverage in the SMH and the Age.

So this morning, at around 5am, when the temperature was hovering about zero we got up, put on our warmest down jackets and ugg boots and went out into the yard,

It was pretty dark, streetlighting in our street consists of a dim globe or two at the intersections of the cross streets, so we stood there facing eastish and let our eyes adjust.

Well we saw a couple of satellites, a plane flying north, and a single meteor, which was cool, but not quite what we expected - the tv news and the papers had oversold the event.

After we'd retreated inside I found a blog that was a little more realistic about what we were likely to see, which kind of matched our experience. If we'd started earlier and set ourselves up for sitting out with blankets and coffee we might have seen more.

We probably won't have a repeat tomorrow - the forecast is for cloud and showers tomorrow, so I guess that's it for the Eta-Aquarid shower until next year ...

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