(meteorobs) Fwd: "Sky-Watcher Alert: Meteor Show Peaks

[Ray Jones]

Joe Rao (and Lew, of course),

Thanks for the timely notification about the present and upcoming
showers,
and the articles written on them explaining them in layman's terms.

I think this letter is really to Julie (or Julz?), who was talking about
being
overwhelmed by the volume and sometimes technical aspect of the postings
here.

I came to this forum several years ago, and felt the same way you did,
especially
about the observation reports and radio counts.  What, I thought, did
they have
to do with looking up at the sky, your breath caught in your throat,
watching
a cosmic visitor from a billion miles away play 'firefly' for you?  And,
on top of
that, there would be these periodic frenzies about meteor showers MONTHS
before
the event, with these guys who seemed WAY out of my league debating
about optimal
viewing times and trajectories and whatnot... it was very disconcerting
and, indeed,
not a little bit overwhelming at times.

Then I started learning to tune out what didn't interest me, following
what did, and
eventually even posting a comment or two.  My big moment came in
November, 2001.
Shortly after 9/11, these guys were posting a gazillion messages an hour
about the
up-coming Leonids.  I realized this was going to be a really big show,
and called
a resort in Death Valley my wife had always wanted to visit.  Due to the
fear of
travel going on at the time we were able to get a spectacular discount
for what was,
at that time, a non-event weekend in November. A few weeks later the
world picked
up on the story, and I ended up having a room that couldn't be obtained
at any price
for a show that I may never see the like of again!  Since then, our
friends will
often ask me 'what's up in the sky this weekend?' since I am the local
(ahem) expert
now <grin>, and always seem to know about the good stuff before it
happens.

Just had a nice weekend with family visiting from Los Angeles.  They
came up here
to the country for a break, and I was able to get them up early one
morning and watch
the South Delta Aquarids a bit.  It was the high point of their trip,
and I owe it
to this list.  We didn't count them, or plot the origination points or
anything.  We
just got cricks in our necks and said "Oooh" and "Aaahhh" a lot.

Sorry for such a long post.  Thanks for everything, guys.  I'll keep
reading, and
hope you do, too, Julie!  And thanks to Joe and Lew for bringing my
attention to 
these two articles, as well as to John Roach, who wrote the National
Geographic
feature, Peter Jenniskens (another frequent poster here) who provided
the photo for
that article, Robert Lunsford (that article from National Geographic
News read a bit
like some namedropper who'd been reading THIS list) and all the rest of
you who keep
posting here so I can impress my friends and family and bring a bit of
heaven into
our own lives.

Here are the links to the two articles, Julie... check 'em out.

Joe's CNN article: 
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/07/26/shower.meteor/


John Roach's NatGeoNews piece:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0722_040727_shootingstar
.html


Thanks again everyone,
RayJ