Nah, just find any nearby park and position yourself strategically so any bright street or house lights are blocked by trees, or just hold up your hand to the side of your face to block them.
The trick is to let your eyes adjust to the dark for 10 mins or so. After that, you'll see way more stars, and have a much easier time spotting meteors. During a meteor shower like the Gemini's happening right now, you should be able to see several per hour. I laid out at Frisinger park (not exactly a dark sky area next to Stadium Blvd and the Venue parking lot) earlier this year for the Perseids meteor shower and saw something like a dozen over the course of an hour or so.
Thanks for the good vibes! I actually just finished my run and I saw two shooting starts within 2 minutes! The first one was a bright blue/green and it moved across the sky at a slower pace. It was great!
Depending on just how bright it was (in absolute terms), you could classify that as a really bright meteor, or if it was particularly bright, as a fireball. Ann Arbor has had a few fireballs go over after dark in the last few decades. For a bright meteor, the starting mass was probably a few tens of grams (most meteors are around a gram of rock). For fireballs, you can be talking tens to hundreds of kilograms of material, potentially enough to create surviving debris (meteorites) that land on the ground. (This happened here in January, 2018: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/meteor-sends-shock-wave-over-michigan/) The asteroid that entered over Chelyabinsk, Siberia a number of years ago, the one that exploded and shattered windows over a large area, was estimated at 11,000 TONS of rock.
They'd be pretty hard to find and identify in Michigan, but in places like north Africa or the mountains of Antarctica, they really stand out against the background terrain.
I'm surprised and a bit sad to hear that so few people have seen meteors before. As an amateur astronomer and stargazer, I want to share some tips to see a lot of shooting stars and maximize your wishes!
* You will have a hard time seeing the faint light of stars and meteors if your eyes aren't acclimated to the dark, so when you decide to observe, find a spot away from street lights, house lights, car headlights, and keep your phone in your pocket. While a park full of trees will limit your view of the sky, they'll also help block a lot of light that will hurt your night vision. If you can't easily get to somewhere away from civilization, it's a worthwhile tradeoff! Sometimes I'll just lay out on a blanket in a field with my hands cupped around the side of my eyes like blinders and it does the trick.
* You don't need any special equipment! Meteors appear randomly and move quickly, so binoculars and telescopes won't help at all. The best gear for meteor showers is a comfortable chair that lays way back, or just a blanket to lay on the ground.
* Be strategic with when you venture out - there are many meteor showers every year, but the especially good ones to look out for are the Geminids (happening now, as in tonight!) and the Perseids (first half of August). These showers peak at 100 meteors per hour, or more!
* Obviously the weather is a factor. Clouds pretty much kill any opportunity for good stargazing. Otherwise, just make sure you dress warmly - warmer than you would for a walk in the same temp, since you'll just be standing/sitting/laying still for a while. Bringing a thermos of a hot beverage is always a bonus!
* The moon counts as a bright source of light and is harder to avoid, so again, timing is important. Try to time your observation before the moon rises or after it sets, or better yet during a new or crescent moon when it's not so bright.
* Our eyes are better at detecting faint lights in our peripheral vision than where we're focusing so you'll often have better luck spotting meteors if you try not to focus on anything in particular, and be more aware of your peripheral vision.
* If you want to take your stargazing a step further, download a stargazing app (lots of folks like Stellarium as a free option) and find the constellation where the shower is "originating" from. The name of the shower tells you what constellation to look for: Geminids radiate from Gemini, Perseids radiate from Perseus. You can then set yourself up to look more that direction, and you should see the meteors streaking away from there. Totally not necessary, though, if you're looking up at the sky during a good shower, you'll see them all over the place.
* Not relevant today, but in the summer, be prepared for bugs and take precautions (but not candles or torches - see the night vision bullet!)
Wrapping it all together for tonight:
We have excellent viewing conditions: the skies are crystal clear, the moon is a small crescent, and the Geminids are at their peak. Find a nearby park or field and look up. If there are street lights nearby, find the darkest part of the field where the shadows cast by trees overlap. Put your phone away and let your eyes adjust to darkness for 10 mins or so. If you do this while looking at the stars, you'll see more and more of them the longer you look! It's cold so make some hot cocoa, bundle up, and get out there!
I wasn't planning on going out tonight but after this big rant I talked myself into it and it was spectacular!
I bundled up and lay on my back in Frisinger Park for about 45 minutes and saw 19 meteors, including 2 or 3 particularly bright/longer ones! One even left a visible cloud/trail behind it for a moment. So cool!
Amazingly, nope! I put on a thick hoodie, my winter coat, thick mittens, long underwear and jeans and was very comfortable on the ground for about half an hour!
See 33 year leonids
Due in 2033
The 1999 show, saw it as a kid in a dark sky park in the Shenandoah, as *3000* meteorites per hour, as in one per second for hours on end.
I saw the 2017 eclipse in totality as well near Charleston SC.
I'm not sure which was better... but both are worth traveling and taking a week off to do so.
That’s incredible, I wish I could have seen those Leonids. Astonishingly, from what I hear, that storm was a bit of a letdown from the 1966 edition where it apparently literally looked like it was raining stars - hundreds of meteors *per second* for a 15 minute period at its peak!
I was able to see the 2017 totality from Oregon though, that was absolutely stunning. Already making plans for the next one in April!
Definitely go out tonight! I told my wife and daughter about my experience this morning and they said they want to see it now too, so we’ll all be out again tonight.
There will be a couple more clouds than yesterday, but it’ll also be warmer. The Geminids can be seen from Nov 19-Dec 24 this year, so while they’re just slightly past the peak now, it just means you’d see slightly fewer per hour than yesterday or the day before.
If you follow the advice above, I’ll bet you could see at least 10 in an hour. Happy gazing!
Yes I saw that, I went outside to sing twinkle twinkle to my 1 yo that didnt want to sleep and it caught my peripheral vision big time and I turned and looked!Amazing. Then I saw a very small one 10 sec later :) score.
What you will find is shooting stars can be incredibly private and personal. We see them a lot in August and we literally will be looking at the same part of the sky and one person will see it and no one else will. But other times we all will see it. If you want to see more find out when the meteor showers are and make sure you’re out in a dark sky those nights.
I just saw one a few minutes ago, looking ESE about halfway up the sky. Tonight is the peak around 1am.
ETA: Recommend the “Sky Guide” app to easily help you find all the star/planet/satellite. It’s like street view for the sky.
If you guys are interested in this. I suggest checking out the university of michigan free planetarium shows by students!
You can go on the roof and they'll find you specific things on a telescope :)
How old are you? That’s wild that you’ve never seen one. I see them pretty often. I saw 4 tonight! Granted I was actually watching for them cus of the meteor shower
Well now you know. If you want to see them really good head out to parks in Dexter or saline with low light pollution on a visible night next time. It’s sweet
Nope! Never. I’m surprised to hear that they’re so common. I’m an avid stargazer and I took a class on astronomy in college where we used gigantic telescopes to do our projects. It was just a 300 level class but it stuck with me and now I take interest in the skies. But yeah this is my first one. It feels like a reward for keeping my head up.
They’re not common, I feel like that person is referring to a moving satellite versus an actual shooting star (aka fragment of a meteor burning up in the atmosphere)
You often frequent dark areas? Also, Michigan has overcasts nearly 80% of the time in the winter even at night. I think people in urban or suburban areas like A2 (the focus for this thread) may not have access to what you’re describing. Def sounds possible for rural/farm land dwellers.
Literal lol at being surprised I go to dark areas. A dark area could be Chelsea, Grand Haven, pretty much everywhere up north and the UP. Explore a bit bud. There's more to Michigan than SE Mich.
It is much harder to see a meteor while using a telescope because you are looking at such a small portion of the sky. Each meteor shower originates from a different portion of the sky so it helps to know which direction to look rather than just straight overhead. The biggest meteor showers are the Geminids, which is happening now, and the Perseids in August. I recommend the Night Sky phone app for night sky viewing.
This is remarkably sad - a testament to our filling the sky with light at night. Go north of town on a clear night. The meteor shower dates will have more, but you'll see them any clear moonless night. They are particularly active after midnight, when the sky over our heads is pointed in the direction of Earth's motion around our orbit of the Sun. (the same way that the front windshield of a car gets more stuff hitting it than the rear window)
[120 per hour](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/geminids/) (during last night’s shower at its peak) is not rare.
Sure, we won’t see most of them from Ann Arbor due to light pollution, but there are hundreds of meteors every day.
Edit to add: During last year’s Perseids I laid out in the field at Frisinger park and counted 15 in the course of an hour or two. On a trip to Hawaii several years ago (obviously with much darker skies), I couldn’t keep track there were so many. Multiple per minute if you let your eyes get acclimated to the dark.
They aren't remotely rare. Just hard to see in a city.
Edit: for the clowns down voting, a quick google search will enlighten you. Maybe check out the Perseids sometime.
It was likely the ISS or possibly an iridium flare (or similar event) although they're supposed to be completely over. They happen when a satellite with large flat shiny surface acts like a mirror and reflects light towards the ground. Iridium sats were particularly bright.
There is so much light pollution in this area its extraordinarily unlikely to see a shooting star. If you did, it was an exceptionally large one.
The ISS is much more likely given the time. The upper atmosphere still gets sunlight long after the ground is dark. Right now, there's still light up there until at least 715p if not closer 8p although it's altitude dependent. Meteor showers tend to peak when we're at solar midnight (1230a) when we're facing directly away from the sun or a little bit after. Geminids peak between 12a and 2a.
Whatever it was, highly encourage going north for a moonless weekend and see the night sky. Meteorites are visible year round, along with satellites, the ISS, and even ships docking with the ISS as they approach are visible together
Not just after sunset.
Edit: the ISS was over central michigan, heading SE, at about 740p (spot the station is down, so using a euro 3rd party site) and was visible on ann arbor in Thursday December 14th. This would put in the best possible position with the sun SW of the station, to flash ann arbor.
The post was from just after sunset. This is the exact time where a low altitude object in orbit is the most visible and a meteor entering the atmosphere is the least visible and least likely. Especially for a flare. The OP has never seen a meteor, and given that would have difficulty disguising the two
I can’t comment on OP’s ability to distinguish, but they did say they’re positive that’s what it was, and given that we’re in the midst of a very busy meteor shower, I’m going to follow Occam’s razor.
Sunset was at 5:03 last night, so 7:40 pm was well after that and plenty dark.
[удалено]
I saw a long one two nights ago right on front of me while I was driving, out in the countryside.
And give your eyes at least 10 mins without any bright lights (phone included!) to adjust to the dark!
That would require getting in a car. Which is verboten.
Nah, just find any nearby park and position yourself strategically so any bright street or house lights are blocked by trees, or just hold up your hand to the side of your face to block them. The trick is to let your eyes adjust to the dark for 10 mins or so. After that, you'll see way more stars, and have a much easier time spotting meteors. During a meteor shower like the Gemini's happening right now, you should be able to see several per hour. I laid out at Frisinger park (not exactly a dark sky area next to Stadium Blvd and the Venue parking lot) earlier this year for the Perseids meteor shower and saw something like a dozen over the course of an hour or so.
Walk out into the Arb?
The hospital pollutes that whole area unfortunately.
I run outdoors nightly at 10pm and there was one week last year which I saw two shooting stars. They are always special! Make a wish.
Thanks for the good vibes! I actually just finished my run and I saw two shooting starts within 2 minutes! The first one was a bright blue/green and it moved across the sky at a slower pace. It was great!
Yes! I saw it too! Amazing 🤩
Yayyy!!! I really wanted to share that with someone
Did it leave a trail that glowed for several seconds?
It did!! And disappeared into the sky, almost like there was an invisible pocket for it to go into
Depending on just how bright it was (in absolute terms), you could classify that as a really bright meteor, or if it was particularly bright, as a fireball. Ann Arbor has had a few fireballs go over after dark in the last few decades. For a bright meteor, the starting mass was probably a few tens of grams (most meteors are around a gram of rock). For fireballs, you can be talking tens to hundreds of kilograms of material, potentially enough to create surviving debris (meteorites) that land on the ground. (This happened here in January, 2018: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/meteor-sends-shock-wave-over-michigan/) The asteroid that entered over Chelyabinsk, Siberia a number of years ago, the one that exploded and shattered windows over a large area, was estimated at 11,000 TONS of rock.
This is so intriguing. It would be so special to find one
They'd be pretty hard to find and identify in Michigan, but in places like north Africa or the mountains of Antarctica, they really stand out against the background terrain.
Wow! I've seen a fair number of meteors but never one with a glowing tail.
I'm surprised and a bit sad to hear that so few people have seen meteors before. As an amateur astronomer and stargazer, I want to share some tips to see a lot of shooting stars and maximize your wishes! * You will have a hard time seeing the faint light of stars and meteors if your eyes aren't acclimated to the dark, so when you decide to observe, find a spot away from street lights, house lights, car headlights, and keep your phone in your pocket. While a park full of trees will limit your view of the sky, they'll also help block a lot of light that will hurt your night vision. If you can't easily get to somewhere away from civilization, it's a worthwhile tradeoff! Sometimes I'll just lay out on a blanket in a field with my hands cupped around the side of my eyes like blinders and it does the trick. * You don't need any special equipment! Meteors appear randomly and move quickly, so binoculars and telescopes won't help at all. The best gear for meteor showers is a comfortable chair that lays way back, or just a blanket to lay on the ground. * Be strategic with when you venture out - there are many meteor showers every year, but the especially good ones to look out for are the Geminids (happening now, as in tonight!) and the Perseids (first half of August). These showers peak at 100 meteors per hour, or more! * Obviously the weather is a factor. Clouds pretty much kill any opportunity for good stargazing. Otherwise, just make sure you dress warmly - warmer than you would for a walk in the same temp, since you'll just be standing/sitting/laying still for a while. Bringing a thermos of a hot beverage is always a bonus! * The moon counts as a bright source of light and is harder to avoid, so again, timing is important. Try to time your observation before the moon rises or after it sets, or better yet during a new or crescent moon when it's not so bright. * Our eyes are better at detecting faint lights in our peripheral vision than where we're focusing so you'll often have better luck spotting meteors if you try not to focus on anything in particular, and be more aware of your peripheral vision. * If you want to take your stargazing a step further, download a stargazing app (lots of folks like Stellarium as a free option) and find the constellation where the shower is "originating" from. The name of the shower tells you what constellation to look for: Geminids radiate from Gemini, Perseids radiate from Perseus. You can then set yourself up to look more that direction, and you should see the meteors streaking away from there. Totally not necessary, though, if you're looking up at the sky during a good shower, you'll see them all over the place. * Not relevant today, but in the summer, be prepared for bugs and take precautions (but not candles or torches - see the night vision bullet!) Wrapping it all together for tonight: We have excellent viewing conditions: the skies are crystal clear, the moon is a small crescent, and the Geminids are at their peak. Find a nearby park or field and look up. If there are street lights nearby, find the darkest part of the field where the shadows cast by trees overlap. Put your phone away and let your eyes adjust to darkness for 10 mins or so. If you do this while looking at the stars, you'll see more and more of them the longer you look! It's cold so make some hot cocoa, bundle up, and get out there!
I wasn't planning on going out tonight but after this big rant I talked myself into it and it was spectacular! I bundled up and lay on my back in Frisinger Park for about 45 minutes and saw 19 meteors, including 2 or 3 particularly bright/longer ones! One even left a visible cloud/trail behind it for a moment. So cool!
Omg you weren’t freezing?
Amazingly, nope! I put on a thick hoodie, my winter coat, thick mittens, long underwear and jeans and was very comfortable on the ground for about half an hour!
This is the best time of year to actually see them due to a lack of heat haze.
See 33 year leonids Due in 2033 The 1999 show, saw it as a kid in a dark sky park in the Shenandoah, as *3000* meteorites per hour, as in one per second for hours on end. I saw the 2017 eclipse in totality as well near Charleston SC. I'm not sure which was better... but both are worth traveling and taking a week off to do so.
RemindMe! October 24, 2033
That’s incredible, I wish I could have seen those Leonids. Astonishingly, from what I hear, that storm was a bit of a letdown from the 1966 edition where it apparently literally looked like it was raining stars - hundreds of meteors *per second* for a 15 minute period at its peak! I was able to see the 2017 totality from Oregon though, that was absolutely stunning. Already making plans for the next one in April!
Aww, I'm really sad I missed this! Do you think there will be any tonight or it's over already?
Definitely go out tonight! I told my wife and daughter about my experience this morning and they said they want to see it now too, so we’ll all be out again tonight. There will be a couple more clouds than yesterday, but it’ll also be warmer. The Geminids can be seen from Nov 19-Dec 24 this year, so while they’re just slightly past the peak now, it just means you’d see slightly fewer per hour than yesterday or the day before. If you follow the advice above, I’ll bet you could see at least 10 in an hour. Happy gazing!
Thanks so much we did see some!!
Woohoo! It was too cloudy for us when we went out 😞
We did, driving down south on Prospect Road.
Just saw one 20 minutes ago by St. Paul!
Thank you! i thought i imagined it. Was out with the dogs and saw it through the tree tops then started doubting myself.
It was so blaringly clear to me that I actually burst into tears!
That's beautiful
Yes I saw that, I went outside to sing twinkle twinkle to my 1 yo that didnt want to sleep and it caught my peripheral vision big time and I turned and looked!Amazing. Then I saw a very small one 10 sec later :) score.
My late dad used to sing me twinkle twinkle!! ❤️🩹
What you will find is shooting stars can be incredibly private and personal. We see them a lot in August and we literally will be looking at the same part of the sky and one person will see it and no one else will. But other times we all will see it. If you want to see more find out when the meteor showers are and make sure you’re out in a dark sky those nights.
Thank you for this
I SAW THE SAME THING DUDE
One can only wish it was an Elon satellite going up in flames
Yes I saw that, then I saw a smaller one 10 we later. That one caught my peripheral vision big time and I turned and looked! Amazing.
Just came back from Island lake Park. We saw a lot of shooting Stars. Great conditions this year
That’s good to know!
I just saw one a few minutes ago, looking ESE about halfway up the sky. Tonight is the peak around 1am. ETA: Recommend the “Sky Guide” app to easily help you find all the star/planet/satellite. It’s like street view for the sky.
Thank you I will take a look!
I believe the December meteor shower is tonight and tomorrow.
I saw it!
Me too, I saw two. My husband saw one also. So cool!
Yes, saw around 2am over Second Sister Lake in Dolph Nature Area. Super cool! Just wait until you get to see a comet!!! 🌠☄️😱
I saw that also! As an aside: I got to see the Perseids on scrooms once. Whew. Life changing.!
If you guys are interested in this. I suggest checking out the university of michigan free planetarium shows by students! You can go on the roof and they'll find you specific things on a telescope :)
How old are you? That’s wild that you’ve never seen one. I see them pretty often. I saw 4 tonight! Granted I was actually watching for them cus of the meteor shower
I feel so left out that everyone was aware of this meteor shower 😭😭 I make conversation often! Never came up lol
Well now you know. If you want to see them really good head out to parks in Dexter or saline with low light pollution on a visible night next time. It’s sweet
Just saw several In about 20 mins. Mainly looking towards Gemini. Made my day!
Thanks for posting this, it's still dark, so I'm going to go look.
Every year. Astronomy books are your friends!
Possible it’s part of the orbital barrage, raid on Ypsi started around 8pm server time last night
Not trying to be mean, but you’ve never seen a shooting star? I feel like I see them at least once or twice a week on average.
Nope! Never. I’m surprised to hear that they’re so common. I’m an avid stargazer and I took a class on astronomy in college where we used gigantic telescopes to do our projects. It was just a 300 level class but it stuck with me and now I take interest in the skies. But yeah this is my first one. It feels like a reward for keeping my head up.
They’re not common, I feel like that person is referring to a moving satellite versus an actual shooting star (aka fragment of a meteor burning up in the atmosphere)
What are you guys talking about? Go to a good dark sky area on a clear night and you'll see one within an hour.
You often frequent dark areas? Also, Michigan has overcasts nearly 80% of the time in the winter even at night. I think people in urban or suburban areas like A2 (the focus for this thread) may not have access to what you’re describing. Def sounds possible for rural/farm land dwellers.
Literal lol at being surprised I go to dark areas. A dark area could be Chelsea, Grand Haven, pretty much everywhere up north and the UP. Explore a bit bud. There's more to Michigan than SE Mich.
*"and was a bit skeptical that they exist"* seriously?
It is much harder to see a meteor while using a telescope because you are looking at such a small portion of the sky. Each meteor shower originates from a different portion of the sky so it helps to know which direction to look rather than just straight overhead. The biggest meteor showers are the Geminids, which is happening now, and the Perseids in August. I recommend the Night Sky phone app for night sky viewing.
I’ve never seen one, either.
This is remarkably sad - a testament to our filling the sky with light at night. Go north of town on a clear night. The meteor shower dates will have more, but you'll see them any clear moonless night. They are particularly active after midnight, when the sky over our heads is pointed in the direction of Earth's motion around our orbit of the Sun. (the same way that the front windshield of a car gets more stuff hitting it than the rear window)
Shooting stars are super rare. I’ve lived in MI for decades and have spent more time outside at night than most. I’ve seen maybe 5.
[120 per hour](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/geminids/) (during last night’s shower at its peak) is not rare. Sure, we won’t see most of them from Ann Arbor due to light pollution, but there are hundreds of meteors every day. Edit to add: During last year’s Perseids I laid out in the field at Frisinger park and counted 15 in the course of an hour or two. On a trip to Hawaii several years ago (obviously with much darker skies), I couldn’t keep track there were so many. Multiple per minute if you let your eyes get acclimated to the dark.
They aren't remotely rare. Just hard to see in a city. Edit: for the clowns down voting, a quick google search will enlighten you. Maybe check out the Perseids sometime.
Similar! I agree.
It was likely the ISS or possibly an iridium flare (or similar event) although they're supposed to be completely over. They happen when a satellite with large flat shiny surface acts like a mirror and reflects light towards the ground. Iridium sats were particularly bright. There is so much light pollution in this area its extraordinarily unlikely to see a shooting star. If you did, it was an exceptionally large one. The ISS is much more likely given the time. The upper atmosphere still gets sunlight long after the ground is dark. Right now, there's still light up there until at least 715p if not closer 8p although it's altitude dependent. Meteor showers tend to peak when we're at solar midnight (1230a) when we're facing directly away from the sun or a little bit after. Geminids peak between 12a and 2a. Whatever it was, highly encourage going north for a moonless weekend and see the night sky. Meteorites are visible year round, along with satellites, the ISS, and even ships docking with the ISS as they approach are visible together
This is incorrect. There are plenty of meteors that are much brighter than the ISS.
Not just after sunset. Edit: the ISS was over central michigan, heading SE, at about 740p (spot the station is down, so using a euro 3rd party site) and was visible on ann arbor in Thursday December 14th. This would put in the best possible position with the sun SW of the station, to flash ann arbor. The post was from just after sunset. This is the exact time where a low altitude object in orbit is the most visible and a meteor entering the atmosphere is the least visible and least likely. Especially for a flare. The OP has never seen a meteor, and given that would have difficulty disguising the two
I can’t comment on OP’s ability to distinguish, but they did say they’re positive that’s what it was, and given that we’re in the midst of a very busy meteor shower, I’m going to follow Occam’s razor. Sunset was at 5:03 last night, so 7:40 pm was well after that and plenty dark.