Friday, November 17, 2006

Spinning long tail

Imagine playing your music selection, with commentary by anybody who knows anything about your songs. That's the idea behind SpotDJ. I like it. I just wish it wasn't built around Apple's iTunes silo.

Backthanks to Howard Greenstien for the pointer.

A roar in the sky

Mary Lu reminds us that it's Leonid Time again. Here's what I wrote about the Leonids in 2001:

Wow!

That's what we said over and over last night as we lay on our back deck on an air mattress sandwiched between layers of blankets, comforters, sleeping bags and large coats, staring up at the at the Leonid meteor storm from 2am until dawn.

It was spectacular. At one point I counted twelve meteors streaking past Jupiter through Gemini alone. At dawn Leo was straight up, a showerhead of meteors streaking out from a single point near the lion's head, celestial fireworks for a crown. What an amazing show.

Of course, that was a peak year. But the Leonids are worth watching any year, because you're sure to see some shooting stars.

Here's what it says about the 2006 shower on NASA's Leonid Multi-Insturment Aircraft Campaign homepage:

The 2006 Leonids will show a dust trail encounter with the 1932-dust trail of comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, as well as the possible return of the Filament component. David Asher's original prediction put the peak time at 04:45 UT on November 19, with a peak rate of about 100 per hour, visible from western Europe and western Africa. Peak time of the Filament component is uncertain. The traditional maximum of the annual Leonid shower is earlier on November 17, around 16:45 UT, well placed for the western USA (early morning of November 18 local time).

IMCCE has a chart that shows the path Earth takes through the trail of comet Temple-Tuttle, which produces the Leonids.

Armagh Observatory expects an outburst visible from Europe and Africa.

This year Roy Britt writes,

If you have kids, see if you can get them up a couple hours before dawn Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Stay out as long as you can — it could take 15-20 minutes before you see your first streak, and you never know when a fireball will appear.

Right now it's 5:14am in San Francisco and raining. I'll miss it tomorrow too, but I'll definitely get up with the kid early Sunday to see what we can.