Operation Camelopardalids

Rosie and I left at around 2:15am to head towards Faculty Hollow for the Camelopardalids meteor shower. It was cold enough to warrant a thick fleece sweater outside, and Rosie had the foresight to bring along rain jackets for us to sit/lie on while we watched the stars.

The sky was clear; a good sign. The forecast had indicated variable cloudiness, but there were barely any clouds and if there were, they were wispy and not in the north. Once we arrived at Faculty Hollow I spotted the Big Dipper -- fine, I spotted part of Ursus Major, but just the dipper part as well as a single deer meandering the Hollow. It disappeared quickly into the woods as we approached, and I tried to follow (with flashlight in hand), but the hill was too steep and I didn't feel like dying quite yet, so I headed back up and we set up camp in the middle of Faculty Hollow.

We had a good view of the sky and the empty patch of sky where the Camelopardalids were supposed to be -- where was Camelopardalis? I couldn't see it. The only stars I recognized were the Big Dipper and Polaris. Cassiopeia was either hidden behind the trees or there was too much light pollution to spot her. Speaking of light pollution -- when I proposed we set up at Faculty Hollow I had imagined it to be darker. I mean, the Hollow itself had no light, which was great, but street lamps lined the path behind it and spoiled the night sky in general, but we still got a good view of the sky, even if it was annoying to have to physically put my hand next to my right eye and pull my hood practically over my eyes to block out the light. On our way back we would discover that our neighbourhood actually had fewer lights and was less well-lit, even if houses and trees blocked a good chunk of the northern sky.

I pulled out my tablet and fired up the Star Chart app to see if there were any constellations/stars we could focus on, and to make sure we were actually facing Camelopardalis. It's a great app that uses the gyroscope/accelerometer to map the night sky as you would see if when you're holding your tablet up. The only downside was trying to pass the tablet to Rosie to show her something, since it is sensitive to changes in direction. She had her iPad fired up and playing Wall-E's Define Dancing - suitable music for what we were doing.

Camelopardalis and surrounding constellations on the Star Chart app.

The meteor storm's peak was projected to be at 2am-4am, with the peak peak (?) at 3:00am. Shortly before 3, I saw my first meteor -- of the night and in my life. It streaked slowly across the sky, just a little above Polaris. After that I may have seen fainter streaks, but honestly I can't be sure because there was too much light to tell whether it was my eyes playing tricks on me or actual meteors zooming past.

We left shortly after 3:30am to go home - although there wasn't a spectacular meteor show we were still pretty satisfied. We met three raccoons as we were crossing Cootes.

By the time I was home and settled in bed, it was 4:30am. I woke up at around noon today - later than I had hoped, but still. I saw meteors.

The next showers are scheduled for August 12 (Perseids), October 21 (Orionids), November 16 (Leonids), and December 13 (Geminids). I'm really hoping to catch the Perseids because it would still be summer when it happened, and the Orionids, because Orion is very easy to find and I always have a good view of it on my way home.

Until the next blog post, or the next astronomical event,

Alice out ~

PS: After some Googling I came across this Toronto SUN article: Camelopardalid meteor shower a bit of a bust. So I guess it wasn't just our bad location that contributed to a less-than-spectacular show. It's somewhat comforting to know that we didn't do anything wrong. The Universe just doesn't like it when I stargaze. I've yet to have a fully satisfactory stargazing session -- granted, the last time I really did it was in grade 7 at camp. Most times I've been out camping we were either under too many trees to discern anything, or it was raining. It was usually raining.

MAY 24 9:07PM EDIT
Other articles relating to the lack of meteors:

• Rare meteor shower falls short of expectations
• Camelopardalids meteor shower a bust, but not a surprise

new calligraphy supplies + planning for the meteor shower

I had the usual lab meeting this morning, and despite my results looking kind of wonky, my supervisor really liked it! Because it exhibited something seen clinically. I mean, the error bars are still pretty damn large and the plateau wasn't perfectly flat, but it still did stuff at the proper concentration.

I also showed them my data from Tuesday when I got super small error bars on another experiment, and how the data fit a quadratic curve more than it did a linear line of best fit. They liked it, so I was cool with that.

I headed home directly after in hopes of having time to do chores and study (oops, I just ended up sleeping). Made a stop at Curry's, something I've meant to do for the past couple weeks/months. I only wanted to see if they had refill cartridges or ink, but I ended up buying $50 worth of stuff:

• Calli | Daler Rowney - (Burgundy 013), 29.5mL [x]
• Calli | Daler Rowney - (Brown 013), 29.5mL [x]
• Royal India Ink - #95000, 30mL [x]
• Panache Master Calligraphy Set* [x]
• Tombow ABT Brush Pen (Red 856)- [x]
• Tombow ABT Brush Pen (Green 296)- [x]
• Tombow ABT Brush Pen (Purple 606)- [x]
• Tombow ABT Brush Pen (Black N15)- [x]

*I do not recommend this set at all; I will update with another blog post reviewing the stuff I bought at another point.

Curry's didn't have the Staedtler set, but after a quick Google search, Amazon sells them for pretty cheap and I can generally rely on Staedtler's quality (I've been using their triplus fineliners for a few years now) + Curry's actually stocks refill cartridges. When I asked the lady at the register if they had any Sheaffer cartridges she said they didn't, which was disappointing. Again, I'll tell the full story on a separate post.

Tonight is the first and possibly last time we'd get to see the Camelopardalids meteor shower - and I only found out about it yesterday. Weather permitting, I plan on dragging Rosie out in the middle of the night to Faculty Hollow to see if we can't watch a bit of the meteor shower. The last time I made a conscious effort to catch a meteor shower/astronomical event was two years ago - the Lyrids shower. I set my alarm for 3:30am, actually managed to get up and get dressed, and wandered outside. It was cold (mid-April, a day before my biochem final) and although the sky was clear I couldn't really see the sky because I only stayed on my street and the light pollution washed pretty much everything out. So I went back inside after 20 minutes.

Regardless of the outcome of today's adventure, I'll probably make another post about past astronomical events as well -- how I tried to follow the blood moon eclipse during exams but it was drizzling the night it actually happened, how the most stars I've seen in years was actually in Kingston on a tournament, maybe about how Orion's belt pretty much the only (partial) constellation I can recognize on my walks home at night because everything else is washed out.

Until then,

Alice out ~

Flowers from today (L-R)
Found these in front of the general hospital as I was waiting for the bus home.
Bleeding hearts on the front lawn of my former house. I've always really liked them for the vivid colouring and unique shape. To be honest they remind me more of cracked eggshells with egg white/yolk running out than bleeding hearts.