A Bit of a Curate's Egg...

[JamesF]

Last night, that is.

Seemed to take ages for the cloud to clear as per the weather forecast. I was keen to get out to have another try at a widefield image of Cygnus but eventually had to wait until about 1am. Once the clouds did clear though the seeing wasn't too bad. Unfortunately as the evening wore on we had ribbons of thin high cloud repeatedly drifting across the sky which has probably ruined some of my subs.

The rate of visible meteors certainly seems to be picking up. I saw a good number in the two hours or so I was out including an absolute cracker heading north through Bootes with an intermittent sparkling trail and another moving south from Cassiopeia with a very vibrant solid white trail.

One of the downsides of summer observing that hasn't been evident until this week was the number of insects that want to share the experience. I ended up lighting and then hiding a citronella candle to keep them away from the laptop screen. As it happens a pair of bats decided to join the fun and spent a fair part of the evening circling over my head, presumably feeding on the insects.

James

[Darkstar_1]

What's a curates egg? I have never heard this expression before

[JamesF]

It's something that's a bit of a mixed bag -- some good bits and some bad.

James

[Darkstar_1]

Well you live and learn, thanks for that.

[SteveNickolls]

Hi Darkstar_1 the idea of a curate's egg comes from a cartoon in Punch magazine in the late 19th century involving a young curate called Mr Jones who is served a bad egg at breakfast. The original cartoon was called "True Humility",and shows a rather timid-looking curate at breakfast at his (future employer's) bishop's house. The bishop says to his guest over the dining table: "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones." The curate desperate not to offend his bishop and future employer replies: "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!" Looking at the original compendium volume of Punch the cartoon comes from 1895.

[Darkstar_1]

Cool, thanks. It's amazing what you learn on SGL.

[JB80]

I wish it would clear up here a bit.

As for the meteors you may be seeing the Delta Aquarids but there could be a few Perseids thrown in too.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

This weekend, Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Comet 96P/Machholz, source of the annual delta Aquarid meteor shower.