It was a dud! Here, for me. I sat out on the front steps for an hour with my back resting against the door. That had me staring at the correct spot. After 5 minutes in the dark, I was seeing all the Big Dipper, Casseopia, and several Little Dipper stars. So I was light-adjusted.
Nothing...
I tried some tricks. I focused on one spot for a while. I let my eyes go out of focus for a while. I looked slightly to the side for a while. None of my usual tricks of seeing in darkness had any effect.
Nothing...
If they were there, they were too faint for me to see through the light pollution. But I could see most of the major constellation stars, so I should have seen some meteors. I will be interested in finding if others did see them. But for now, I'm just disappointed again.
Showing posts with label Meteors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meteors. Show all posts
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Friday, May 23, 2014
Tooth Pulled
Well, I ended up having TWO teeth pulled Thursday! It was much less bad than I feared or had read about. The novacaine worked well enough so that I never really felt anything during the extractions. Oh, there was some pulling sensation, and I got poked on the other side by accident a few times, but the most disturbing part was the tooth-breaking noises and the dentist complaining that the main tooth just didn't want to come out.
He gave me a prescription for vicodin, but I didn't really feel that bad after the novacaine wore off, so I took the minimum dosage.
But I also had a plan to get through as much of the first 24 hours as easily as possible! First, I stayed up all night and day before the appointment. Then after the novacaine wore off about 5 pm, drank 2 bowls of soup (cream of mushroom and chicken noodle).
I went to bed at 8 pm! Other than taking another vicodin whenever I woke up after 4 hours, I stayed in bed until 4pm. Yes, 20 hours! And I only got up then to feed the cats... So I had a bowl of spaghetti. It seemed like the softest solid food I had. But it meant I pretty much slept through the 24 hours after the extractions.
A curious part of the whole operation was that the dentist put a blood pressure cuff on me that automatically inflated, displayed my blood pressure, then deflated. And did that every few minutes the entire time. I'd been wondering about my blood pressure for years. Sitting in a dentists chair, awaiting the operation, it was 120/70. The highest it got the whole time was 157/85. The dentist was surprized too. When he saw the first one, he laughed and said "You're going to be just fine".
I don't consciously do meditation or related relaxation techniques, but as I was sitting there waiting for the novacaine to take effect, I recalled snippets of a mantra from the sci-fi book 'Dune'. I basically came up with "Fear is the mind-killer. I will not allow fear to control me. I will adapt to the requirements of the moment." I don't know if that actually had any effect, but it seemed to do no harm either.
Naturally, I looked up the quote when I got home. It reads, in full,
He gave me a prescription for vicodin, but I didn't really feel that bad after the novacaine wore off, so I took the minimum dosage.
But I also had a plan to get through as much of the first 24 hours as easily as possible! First, I stayed up all night and day before the appointment. Then after the novacaine wore off about 5 pm, drank 2 bowls of soup (cream of mushroom and chicken noodle).
I went to bed at 8 pm! Other than taking another vicodin whenever I woke up after 4 hours, I stayed in bed until 4pm. Yes, 20 hours! And I only got up then to feed the cats... So I had a bowl of spaghetti. It seemed like the softest solid food I had. But it meant I pretty much slept through the 24 hours after the extractions.
A curious part of the whole operation was that the dentist put a blood pressure cuff on me that automatically inflated, displayed my blood pressure, then deflated. And did that every few minutes the entire time. I'd been wondering about my blood pressure for years. Sitting in a dentists chair, awaiting the operation, it was 120/70. The highest it got the whole time was 157/85. The dentist was surprized too. When he saw the first one, he laughed and said "You're going to be just fine".
I don't consciously do meditation or related relaxation techniques, but as I was sitting there waiting for the novacaine to take effect, I recalled snippets of a mantra from the sci-fi book 'Dune'. I basically came up with "Fear is the mind-killer. I will not allow fear to control me. I will adapt to the requirements of the moment." I don't know if that actually had any effect, but it seemed to do no harm either.
Naturally, I looked up the quote when I got home. It reads, in full,
"I must not fear. Fear
is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I
will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it
has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has
gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
But there is another part to my scheduling plan. There is a brand new meteor shower that will be visible in all of North America from 2-4 am EDT Saturday (as in 2 to 4 hours after Friday midnight, Washington DC time. It may be a spectacular Meteor Storm (1,000+ meteors per hour) or it may be a dud. The meteors will come out of a spot dead north (just to the right and down from the Big Dipper.
So be staying in bed so late today, I will be awake at that time! And for once during the regular meteor showers, it will be warm AND the sky will be clear. I sure hope it is spectacular. I've never seen a good in my life!
Back to the dental work. My tongue tells me that there is a HUGE GAPING HOLE in the back right upper side. The jaw hurts to open fully, but that's from the novacaine shot (I've experienced that from past dental work). I suppose I will wait longer than necessary to chew on that side of my mouth agai. Well, I've been chewing on one side for a couple months, so another week won't matter.
But I seem to have gotten through...
Sunday, August 12, 2012
August Meteor Showers!
And I can't see them AGAIN this year. Its all overcast. I'm a bit conflicted by that. First, the clouds are there because we got a decent rainfall this evening, and we sure needed THAT! 1 1/4" of rain in the past 2 days, and that's about the best since April. Second, the temperature dropped to 70 (briefly) during the daylight, and I haven't felt THAT outside for months.
But I love astronomy. When I moved here 26 years ago, I could occasionally see the milky way, and seeing the constellations was routine. Over the years, light pollution and general haze has eliminated the milky way from home "seeing" (astronomese for "good viewing) , and it is a rare night when the constellations are clear. About 2 months ago, I was taking the recycling bins to the street when I realized that the stars were quite visible. I don't know "why", just one of those things.
I stayed out for an hour just "seeing". I even noticed one star that shouldn't have been there in a constellation. I went to the computer to see if there was a new nova star, and discovered it was Jupiter. So I went back out and looked around a bit. Sure enough, I found Mars and another planet (Saturn I suppose, because Venus would have been closer to the sun).
It made me think back to a camping trip to Canada in 1980 (or thereabouts). The first night, the stars shone madly and the milky way was vivid. The other nights were overcast. Well, at least I saw that one night.
Can you imagine what the night sky must have looked like "only" a few centuries ago? Absolutely ablaze with stars! No wonder our ancestors saw images among them, there were SO MANY more stars visible. I envy that so much.
But to get back to the beginning (meteor showers, remember?), tonight was the night to see the Perseid meteor shower. And it is predicted to be one of the better years for it (about 100 meteors per hour). I won't see it, and it is probably near it peak about know. I am covered with clouds...
There are only a few major meteor showers each year, and even those have really good years only every few/many years.
Sorry, that's a bit confusing. We see meteor showers at the same times every year because the Earth passes through the same point as some cometary debris orbit at the same time every year. Meaning that the cometary debris that we call meteors intersects Earth orbit the same time every year, but the debris is not spread out along the orbit uniformly. So some years, we hit denser patches of debris than in other years. Those times can be spectacular. But you can't see them if there are clouds; and this year, for me, there are clouds.
You know what frustrates me most? MOST years, the sky is overcast here on the best meteor nights. I feel cursed sometimes. Its all random, of course, but I still fell unlucky about meteor showers. I'll have to go look at OTHER people's images of the meteors tomorrow on websites. Well, at least there is that. But it's not the same as real seeing. And I miss real seeing...
But I love astronomy. When I moved here 26 years ago, I could occasionally see the milky way, and seeing the constellations was routine. Over the years, light pollution and general haze has eliminated the milky way from home "seeing" (astronomese for "good viewing) , and it is a rare night when the constellations are clear. About 2 months ago, I was taking the recycling bins to the street when I realized that the stars were quite visible. I don't know "why", just one of those things.
I stayed out for an hour just "seeing". I even noticed one star that shouldn't have been there in a constellation. I went to the computer to see if there was a new nova star, and discovered it was Jupiter. So I went back out and looked around a bit. Sure enough, I found Mars and another planet (Saturn I suppose, because Venus would have been closer to the sun).
It made me think back to a camping trip to Canada in 1980 (or thereabouts). The first night, the stars shone madly and the milky way was vivid. The other nights were overcast. Well, at least I saw that one night.
Can you imagine what the night sky must have looked like "only" a few centuries ago? Absolutely ablaze with stars! No wonder our ancestors saw images among them, there were SO MANY more stars visible. I envy that so much.
But to get back to the beginning (meteor showers, remember?), tonight was the night to see the Perseid meteor shower. And it is predicted to be one of the better years for it (about 100 meteors per hour). I won't see it, and it is probably near it peak about know. I am covered with clouds...
There are only a few major meteor showers each year, and even those have really good years only every few/many years.
Sorry, that's a bit confusing. We see meteor showers at the same times every year because the Earth passes through the same point as some cometary debris orbit at the same time every year. Meaning that the cometary debris that we call meteors intersects Earth orbit the same time every year, but the debris is not spread out along the orbit uniformly. So some years, we hit denser patches of debris than in other years. Those times can be spectacular. But you can't see them if there are clouds; and this year, for me, there are clouds.
You know what frustrates me most? MOST years, the sky is overcast here on the best meteor nights. I feel cursed sometimes. Its all random, of course, but I still fell unlucky about meteor showers. I'll have to go look at OTHER people's images of the meteors tomorrow on websites. Well, at least there is that. But it's not the same as real seeing. And I miss real seeing...
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