Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Actual Thickness of Meteor Trails Measured

One thing I appreciate about living on a flat desert island is that one can see a vast expanse of sky, compared to the hilly, forested northeastern USA where I grew up. So Bonaire is a good place to spot meteors, and I've seen plenty over the years even if I'm notoriously reluctant to arise in the wee hours of the morning during the recognised meteor showers.

So this article on space dot com about measuring the thickness of meteor trails caught my eye. It turns out that they are pretty thin.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dear Brad's Bonaire Update:

Do you take photographs of the sitings, as well?
They'd be interesting to view...
Julian
www.ijulian.blogspot.com

Brad said...

I've never set out to photograph any of those elusive meteor trails. They appear to be quite difficult to capture, but it would give me a good reason to purchace that 14mm lens I've been lusting after!
I've just found that if one spends enough time outdoors here on Bonaire, whether during the daytime or at night, you are bound to see absolutely amazing things from time to time.
I recently saw the most amazing meteor trail photo at a Minolta DSLR users group. I'll post a link to it if I can find it again.