How often does it happen? shooting stars

[Celeste]

That you see a shooting star when observing? I was just out looking at Jupiter whilst I could and a shooting star went right across my EP....it was far too fast for a satellite. To say I went OHHHHH lol is an understatement I often see satellites slowly floating past but this was very fast zoooooooooooom lol. No chance of it being a plane, not unless some secret service somewhere has developed a new superspeed craft

So the question is how often does it happen? I'm hoping for more it was something really cool

[davy999]

They happen quite often.

Throughout the year there are particular meteor showers but meteors do fall most of the time and you will doubtless see more as you observe more.

[dlp]

I inadvertently caught one while imaging M42 last night, in this (hacked process) image of 30s -

[davy999]

Watch this, at about 20 seconds centre-right, you will see one here.

[KenG]

If you're out just looking, i.e. not observing, then you should see quite a lot. I would pick up at least a couple most nights when I'm doing nothing more than enjoying the view.

[jam1e1]

tend to see a couple each night been out observing. Saw amazing one tonight, arond 10pm ish under orion heading SW direction at quite steep angle, burned up as passed through atmosphere, looked quite bright too

[Mark-mck]

i was having a play with my dad's camera last night, piggybacked and just doing a few wide angle shots of orion and cought one in one of the shots, as well a plane that decided it needed to fly right across the whole area i was shooting lol

[black5f]

Although I like to watch during showers, the best I have seen are just those chance things. The best one was many years ago, couldn't sleep, drew curtains and just watched. Amazing fireball, not your normal quick straight streek but slowing and clearly falling to earth in a curve, small flash and gone. A real sense of perspective to see the last seconds of a billion year old space rock! Wonderful aren't they!

[FraserClarke]

The background ("sparoid") rate is about 10-20 per hour; depending how faint you can see of course. Seeing one through the eyepiece is quite a lot rarer!