Speaker 1: The rush hour with James Golden entertaining and informative on
Speaker 1: the Red Apple podcast network, and we.
Speaker 2: Have quite some night apparently if you are on the
Speaker 2: east coast of the New you know, by the way,
Speaker 2: if you if you have folks visiting over there in Europe,
Speaker 2: the first total solar eclipse in decades happened today tonight
Speaker 2: their time. It's totality. People had paid exorbitant hotel rates
Speaker 2: to get the best point of views. The sun totally obscured. Uh,
Speaker 2: there is something happening in New Jersey and for that tonight,
Speaker 2: not on the same experience level, but for that we
Speaker 2: call in and so glad to have him the official
Speaker 2: astronomer here at both early's rush hour Gary swingin Gary,
Speaker 2: how are you this afternoon?
Speaker 3: Well, good afternoon to you, James, and thank you for
Speaker 3: having me on again. I just want to make a clarification.
Speaker 3: It's going to be visible all over North America at
Speaker 3: the event tonight.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, I thought this was New Jersey. I
Speaker 2: thought it was on the east coast. You mean to
Speaker 2: tell me this thing is going to be all over
Speaker 2: the country.
Speaker 3: Most of the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 2: Oh, tell everybody what it is. I'm keeping him a
Speaker 2: suspense all over the country. Folks, no matter where you
Speaker 2: are in the country, you might be able to participate.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, exactly. It's called the percied media shower coming
Speaker 3: out of the constellation of Perseus. It's an incredible event
Speaker 3: if we can see it. I'n't got my fingers crossed.
Speaker 3: And when I would advise folks to do, if the
Speaker 3: weather cooperates with us, to look in the northeast about
Speaker 3: eleven PM tonight, wait until it gets dark and get
Speaker 3: away from an area that has an air pollution or
Speaker 3: any kind of bright lights. You you need to be
Speaker 3: out in the field or somewhere where it's pretty dark
Speaker 3: to see the large number of meteors. And of course
Speaker 3: you'll be able to see this this show if the
Speaker 3: weather helps us anywhere between eleven PM up to the
Speaker 3: wee hours of the early morning about five AM and so.
Speaker 2: And during that time, what will people see? They will
Speaker 2: see a bunch of media streaking across the sky just
Speaker 2: one aft. Are they sometimes in groups like you see?
Speaker 2: Or what do they what should they expect to see
Speaker 2: if the weather cooperates.
Speaker 3: Well, if the weather cooperates, you know, under ideal conditions,
Speaker 3: which is about you'll see anywhere between the fifty and
Speaker 3: one hundred meteors per hour in this area. That's under
Speaker 3: ideal conditions, James, as if you're at Arizona or Wyoming
Speaker 3: or some other deserted area so to speak. Now it's
Speaker 3: i would say around this year, you'd say anywhere about
Speaker 3: a maximum probably I'll say thirty per hour. And the
Speaker 3: good thing about it is that the moon is not visible,
Speaker 3: so we're going to have a pretty dark night if
Speaker 3: the weather cooperates with us.
Speaker 2: The moon is not visible because of where it is
Speaker 2: falling on its monthly rotation.
Speaker 3: Correct exactly, because you know we had we had the
Speaker 3: solar eclipse this morning, or rather this afternoon, and of
Speaker 3: course by that time, the Earth has rotated, and of
Speaker 3: course the Sun so to speak, is somewhat on the
Speaker 3: other side for this celestial event.
Speaker 4: So this could be a big deal.
Speaker 2: Now if people want to, If people want to, what's
Speaker 2: the best way if you wanted to capture video of
Speaker 2: when you look at the night skies and people see this,
Speaker 2: People do this all the time. Maybe you have some tips,
Speaker 2: maybe you don't. But if you're outside and you see
Speaker 2: it's particularly a beautiful night, and you want to take
Speaker 2: a picture on your phone or picture or camera. What's
Speaker 2: the best way to take a picture of the night sky.
Speaker 3: Well, I would suggest if you're using a camera, use
Speaker 3: a digital uh you know SLR and have to shutter
Speaker 3: wide open as long as you can possibly keep it
Speaker 3: open during that time, and you'll get these streaks across
Speaker 3: the sky. Use a wide as I say, to a
Speaker 3: wider lend lens so that you get a wide field
Speaker 3: of the view of the sky. But the best, the
Speaker 3: best way to look at the media showers with the
Speaker 3: naked eye. Don't use anything. I see people go out
Speaker 3: with binoculars and you only that limits your field of view.
Speaker 3: But to go out there and just look up at
Speaker 3: the night on a crystal clear night sky and you'll
Speaker 3: see perhaps in this area, I would say I would
Speaker 3: predict about twenty per hour. Also with an iPhone or
Speaker 3: a commercial. I'm not going to promoad an iPhone, but
Speaker 3: if you take a cell phone, you're going to have
Speaker 3: to run that thing for at least an hour to
Speaker 3: an hour and a half on a stationary tripod and
Speaker 3: just let it run NonStop, and you'll see those streaks
Speaker 3: coming across the sky.
Speaker 2: So even on you. You set up a trifile. If
Speaker 2: that's what you have and that's what you want to use,
Speaker 2: you let it run in. You do a video going
Speaker 2: what like a slow mode video or just a regular.
Speaker 3: Well you could even do a slow video, or you
Speaker 3: can do a fast video. But the most important thing,
Speaker 3: I would think the slow would be better than the fast,
Speaker 3: because what you're trying to do is capture these things
Speaker 3: as they streak across the sky. And they do it,
Speaker 3: they go rapidly across the sky. You'll be surprised when
Speaker 3: you see them coming from a central point in the sky,
Speaker 3: coming out of that constellation, emanating and sort of like
Speaker 3: in three hundred and sixty degrees all around you.
Speaker 2: Now and now you just raise something else and I'll
Speaker 2: let you go after this. But you say, okay, they're
Speaker 2: coming out of the constellation. Yes, Explain how these media
Speaker 2: showers happening. Are they happening all the time or is
Speaker 2: this just something? Why does this happen on? It happens
Speaker 2: regularly so you can predict it. But it doesn't happen
Speaker 2: every night.
Speaker 3: Well, you do get meteors every night. In fact, you
Speaker 3: get about forty eight tons of meteor debris every day
Speaker 3: because obviously during the daytime I can't see the meteors.
Speaker 3: But the truth be told about this stuff is that
Speaker 3: one meteor showers occur because they are the remnants of
Speaker 3: the tale of a comet. As comets go around the Sun,
Speaker 3: the radiation from the Sun as well as the gravitational
Speaker 3: pull of the Sun will rip some of the particles
Speaker 3: from the central part of the comet, which is what
Speaker 3: we refer to as a dirty snowball, and that debris
Speaker 3: goes in orbit around the Earth. So every August we
Speaker 3: come around and we go into this field, this debris
Speaker 3: field which gem okay, and those particles are not very big,
Speaker 3: James at all.
Speaker 4: Well, how big are they?
Speaker 3: Well, they're like grains of sand. But the problem is
Speaker 3: that a movie at a speed of it when they
Speaker 3: hit our atmosphere, it's about thirty seven miles per second,
Speaker 3: or about one hundred and thirty three thousand miles per hour.
Speaker 3: And because they're moving so fast, they burn up in
Speaker 3: the Earth's atmosphere. The friction in the atmosphere causes them
Speaker 3: to be overheated and then they vaporize, and that's why
Speaker 3: we see aka shooting stars emanating across the sky.
Speaker 2: You said, these things in some cases no bigger than
Speaker 2: a grain of sand.
Speaker 3: Correct, exactly, So they're not very big at all. WHOA, Now,
Speaker 3: if we have one the size of a golf well,
Speaker 3: you certainly would see it, and they would be visible
Speaker 3: over several Northeastern states, which we call a bull led,
Speaker 3: a very large thing. It looks like a missile traveling
Speaker 3: across the sky. But most of them, most of them.
Speaker 3: When you go out on any night, clear night and
Speaker 3: you look up and you see a meteor, it's not
Speaker 3: very big at all. It's just a tiny greened of sand.
Speaker 4: That is incredible.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Where can people reach you?
Speaker 2: We have to get get, get, get get, get to
Speaker 2: get in so we can get in our clip of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 4: But where can people reach.
Speaker 3: You, Gary, Well, you can reach me at very easy
Speaker 3: Space Observatory at aol dot com.
Speaker 2: Space Observatory at aol dot com. If you have any questions,
Speaker 2: and you and I are going to be talking further.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us head to the
Speaker 2: sky tonight, folks. This would be a good night to
Speaker 2: see the annual media shower. So thank you so much. Gary,
Speaker 2: appreciate you, Thank.
Speaker 3: You very much. James Clear, Sky Clear.
Speaker 2: Skies to you, my friend James Golden snared Lee. Now
Speaker 2: I learned so much. I did not know that. I
Speaker 2: thought meteors were like media showers, Roy. You know, big
Speaker 2: rocks size of a grain of a sand, and we
Speaker 2: can see it from down here on Earth as it
Speaker 2: flies by. Isn't creation amazing? God's creation?
Speaker 1: The Rush Hour with James Golden entertaining and informative on
Speaker 1: the Red Apple Podcast Network.