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Perseids 2004
ASTER Science Center. St-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! (Qc) 2004
http://www2.globetrotter.net/faaq/clubs/aster/
August 12, 2004, members of our club went to the ASTER Centre, for thew annual Perseids. Marc-Andre Paradis organized the evening which proved to quite spectacular!
First, all participants could draw, on a star map, all the meteors that one saw; indicating the direction and length on the sighting. After a while, we could see that practically all the "shooting stars" were coming from the direction of Perseus... except a few "intruders"!
And as though the Perseids were not enough to make this a special night, we witnessed the awesome debris that crossed the sky from the north-west to the south-east horizon! It was extremely bright all the while and from time to time we could see even brighter bursts! At that moment nobody knew what it could be. If it was a fireball, this was quite a unique event!
Usually, a fireball is seen for a few moments in the sky and then blows up, but this object kept on going from one horizon to the other! To be a fireball, this one shold have:
1. been so big to have kept on burning for so long,
2. to have entered earth's atmosphere precisely at the right speed & angle, so as not to fly of into space or to have fallen down to earth
...and happen precisely on Perseids night!
Later on, we learned that in fact, it was the debris (3rd stage) of a Russian rocket, launched at the beginning of August. This entree was documented and expected to happen precisely thie evening.
What a feast we had!
...in front of the solar clock
