Meteorites for Fathers Day

[SilverAstro]

7 minutes ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

it was a witnessed fall back in 1947.......they year my mum was born.

Gulp ! I remember John's Barwell reportage at the time,,,,  more than that i am not going to say ( 5th amendment etc )

[barkis]

Apologies to Flo, I hope my post didn't interfere too much, but I thought Micro Meteorites deserved a mention, although 
I know enthusiasts are well aware of them.

[LukeSkywatcher]

14 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

Gulp ! I remember John's Barwell reportage at the time,,,,  more than that i am not going to say ( 5th amendment etc )

My original plan was to have a piece of the 1947 Alin fall made into a piece of jewelry for Mothers Day. I liked it so much i kept it for myself and bought her a card and a DVD

[LukeSkywatcher]

1 minute ago, barkis said:

Apologies to Flo, I hope my post didn't interfere too much, but I thought Micro Meteorites deserved a mention, although 
I know enthusiasts are well aware of them.

They exist, more than most of us know. I just cant see myself getting down on my hands and knees with a magnet to locate them. I believe house guttering is the best place to look.

Im also not gonna get up on my roof any time soon to look for them.

LOL.

[JamesF]

2 hours ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

They exist, more than most of us know. I just cant see myself getting down on my hands and knees with a magnet to locate them. I believe house guttering is the best place to look.

Im also not gonna get up on my roof any time soon to look for them.

LOL.

I diverted one of our downpipes into a 25l drum and put a neodymium magnet (inside a plastic bag) in the bottom of the drum.  Every so often we take it out and see what has been collected by the magnet.

James

[Grant]

On 15 June 2016 at 15:53, FLO said:

I have small hands 

I'm sure I suggested using Steve as the scale - not sure that went down well thought  

[SilverAstro]

18 minutes ago, Grant said:

I'm sure I suggested using Steve as the scale - not sure that went down well thought  

^

Can I have mine delivered by a super trouper ( of the ABBA variety ), please ?

 

49 minutes ago, JamesF said:

I diverted one of our downpipes into a 25l drum and put a neodymium magnet (inside a plastic bag) in the bottom of the drum.  Every so often we take it out and see what has been collected by the magnet.

and ? !!  find anything ?  Do you do this first rain after a shower (iyswim) ? I have some neos, sounds like a to-do !

 

[JamesF]

22 minutes ago, SilverAstro said:

and ? !!  find anything ?  Do you do this first rain after a shower (iyswim) ? I have some neos, sounds like a to-do !

I usually leave the magnet in the drum for a few months at a time, then take it out and put the magnet, bag and anything attached to it into a container that I leave in the airing cupboard to dry out.  Once dry the magnet can be removed from the bag and the collected "stuff" can be shaken off the bag into the pot .  I use a plastic pot and have been able to use the magnet placed underneath it to drag small ferrous particles (generally no larger than 1mm) around inside.

So, yes, we do find something.

Question is, can it be of extra-terrestrial origin?  To get to where we live people usually go to the middle of nowhere and try to find someone who can give them directions.  It's not exactly surrounded by heavy industry   The prevailing winds probably don't favour carrying ferrous airborne dust towards us either though clearly as dust from the Sahara can make it here sometimes that's not a possibility that can absolutely be discounted.  I choose to believe that some of what we find might be of meteoritic origin

Estimates vary by several powers of ten, but perhaps the total volume of meteoritic material falling on the Earth per year might be around 60,000 tonnes.  If it falls fairly evenly on the surface of the Earth (which I doubt), that's about 120kg per square kilometer or about 0.12g per square metre (assuming I've done my maths correctly).  At a guess, it being too dark to go out and measure, I'd say we're collecting from about 100sqm of roof (in terms of horizontal area covered).  So perhaps on average we might expect 12g of meteoritic material per year to land on the roof.  That won't all be ferrous and we'll miss the stuff that isn't, suggesting that whatever we get that might be genuinely extra-terrestrial, there won't be much of it

None of which means it's not fun to try it, especially if you get children involved.

James

[SilverAstro]

12 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Question is, can it be of extra-terrestrial origin? 

None of which means it's not fun to try it, especially if you get children involved.

Even children of all ages

Very interesting post and analysis, thanks James. Yes, between asking and now I did a bit of googling and there is quite a debate about the proportion of "anthropogenic" material ( look, I even learned a new word !! ) So I suppose us being in the SW we should collect when the prevailing is off the Atlantic ( not infrequent !) and not from the north ( ie over the South Wales steel industry )  so a diverter in the downpipe perhaps ?   I wonder if there is any data to be had on how high anthropogenic material is 'injected' to be carried how far,,,,

We may even need a mod. to split this off ! Sorry Steve !!

 

[FLO]

On 15 June 2016 at 15:45, FLO said:

I almost posted one of the photos showing the Stormtrooper but when we last did someone complained we weren't taking them seriously enough! I keep meaning to buy one of those 'serious' shiny metal metric cubes for the photos.

 

20 hours ago, ant said:

I like the storm trooper, personally. Life is fun - go with the storm trooper - so much more interesting that a 1cm cube.

 

20 hours ago, John said:

A lot of vendors use a well known coin for scale or a 1cm cube

I just found this 1cm metric cube. 

The manufacturer has photographed it with a Lego figure, for scale.  That's ironic 

I'll order one. I guess it'll need to be the black/white one, for the grown-ups. 

 

[John]

Grown ups ????

We post pictures of boxes with eyepieces in them ........

[Ant]

Please ensure that all photos with the metric cm cube has the storm trooper in for scale....

I'm too old for metric, feet and inches every day

ant

[FLO]

3 hours ago, ant said:

I'm too old for metric, feet and inches every day

You must be really grown up  

(Me too!) 

[JamesF]

1 minute ago, FLO said:

You must be really grown up  

(Me too!) 

I belong to the generation that was taught metric at school whilst their parents used only imperial at home so I often combine the two, for example measuring something as "five inches and three millimetres".

James

[Ant]

I actually do the same James

[John]

Me too - aperture is most often inches, focal length invariably in mm

[LukeSkywatcher]

I'm all about the feet and inches. Owning telescopes though has taught how to convert mm to inches very quickly. I'm still not able to convert KPH to MPH.........and is probably the reason i have had a couple of speeding tickets.

Im also good with kilo to Lbs and visa versa.

 

 

[LukeSkywatcher]

I just pulled the trigger on this:

 4 Lego Storm troopers (with a selection of weapons included) and the troop transport. I only want the storm troopers. Good price on Amazon. Good to know my meteorite collection will be well guarded.

 

• Includes 4 Stormtrooper minifigures with assorted weapons
• Imperial Troop Transport features a dual flick missile turret and space for 4 Stormtroopers and their weapons
• Also includes extra ammunition
• Weapons include 4 stud shooters
• Load up the troops and track down some rebels