Orionid Meteor Project October 21, 2006 00:30-03:30

Background on Orionids Come from debris from Halley's comet tail Discovered in 1864 Linked to Halley’s comet in 1941 Can be seen between Oct 2 and Nov 7 with peak around Oct 21 Among the fastest meteors (42 miles (or 67 km) per second 20% leave trains that persist for 1 to 2 seconds

Estimation Time How many meteors do you think will fall that night? Sometimes 5000 meteors fall in an hour and sometimes 20 meteors fall in an hour. Make a guess of how many meteors you think will fall in one hour. Write your number in the meteor sheet provided.

Gathering Data Work with a partner No more than 3 working together Face East Do NOT bunch up Do NOT wander off Use the data sheet provided to collect all of your observations

Estimations You will need to estimate cloud cover Etc. You will need to estimate star magnitude Locate the constellation Orion in the eastern sky Note the magnitude of the dimmest star you can see

Constellation Orion Betelgeuse – Giant red star which may eventually go super nova! Orion nebula – enough stellar material to create 10,000 new stars Orion Nebula

Star Magnitudes 0.5 4.5 2.2 1.7 0.2 2.1 0.9 3.5 3.7 3.2 3.4 4.4 1.9

Star Magnitudes 4.4 4.5 What can you see? 3.7 3.2 0.2 0.5 3.4 1.7 2.2 2.1 What can you see? The larger the number the dimmer the star. Want to know the magnitude of the dimmest star you can see.

Where to Look This represents the view from mid-northern latitudes at about 1:00 a.m. local time around October 21. Because of Earth's rotation, this view will roughly be the same for every mid-northern latitude location in the world. The red line across the bottom of the image represents the horizon.

Location We will meet in Nevins Hall located at Latitude 30.84676 degrees North and Longitude 83.28743 degrees West

Some Interesting Observations

Galaxies

Additional Assignment Check under the project link on my Web page for further details for more points You are not required to do the rest of the project