I only saw half-a-dozen shooting stars last night over a hour-long period - not great! But there is still a chance of seeing more tonight - so do take a look if it is clear.
And while I did not manage to catch any on film, a friend of mine Pete Lawrence was much more successful...
It is the time of year again when the Earth passes through the debris left behind by Comet Swift Tuttle.
For the last 10 days, the number of meteors (shooting stars) have been greater that usual, and I myself saw a bright meteor through partial cloud a few nights ago. But over the next few nights and mornings (the 11th and 12th), the Earth will be going through the heart of the debris stream. The plot below, from British amateur radio astronomer Dave Swan (see the radio meteor observers website for other contributors), shows the number of meteors, tiny bits of rock less than a millimeter in size, currently burning up over the UK.
As you can see from Dave's data, we see more meteors after midnight than before. But why is this?
Our Earth is orbiting around the Sun at 70,000 mph. In the evening, we are looking backwards, at where the Earth has been. But in the morning, we are looking forward in the direction of Earth's travel around the Sun. If you've ever driven through falling snow in a car, you will realise that it is more exciting looking forwards than looking backwards, and so you see more meteors burning up in the Earth's atmosphere looking into space after midnight than before.
It is also best to go somewhere dark, well away from the light pollution of the cities. The darker your location, the more meteors you will see - and you may see a sight that you will always remember!
Over the last days, the full Moon has been gliding past the bright planet Jupiter - as you can see in this photograph.
Not only that, but the Moon light reflecting off the English channel is a beautiful sight.
There have been some spectacular sunsets over the last week here in East Sussex. Just take a look at the following photographs.
See if you can spot the person in this photograph on the English Channel coast!
Mena really give these cliffs a sense of huge scale!
This time-lapse movie I produced last month shows just how quickly sunflowers grow!
On the 23rd of July, 2009, Chandra celebrated its tenth birthday in space!
To celebrate this event, I narrated an audio slide show for the BBC News online, which you can listen to here. The piece was listened to over 150,000 times on the first day alone!
During August 2009, I'll be working in the Peter Harrison Planetarium at the Royal Observatory on the following dates:
On these days, I will be presenting a variety of shows, including:
Full details of all these shows can be found on the planetarium website.
On the 19th July, amateur astronomers discovered an asteroid impact on Jupiter. On the very same day, another amateur astronomer discovered a volcano erupting on Venus!
Full details on the BBC News and Astronomy Now.
