I awoke this morning shortly after 5:00 and dressed warmly to see the first meteor shower of 2009, the Quadrantids. I had just been reading about this shower the night before and it sounded like it would have an impressive peak at 5:00 pacific time. The conditions looked good from inside my house, so I ventured to my backyard and looked high into the north-east. It took only a minute or two before I was rewarded for my efforts: a pinpoint of light streaked across the sky for an instant. I was energized and focused and saw a particularly bright one a minute later. In my brief 15 minute session, I saw about 8 meteors. By then the first light of dawn was beginning to color the eastern sky and I was ready to hop back into bed!
Meteors are a delight from my point of view for a variety of reasons. They are high-speed astronomical events, those rare things you can encounter in the sky that are fast and require you to pay attention, like a total solar eclipse. Meteors are quick and yet they leave the impression of a long trail in your eye (sometimes the long streak is real, but often it is just a visual memory). My favorite thing is that they are silent. I always expect them to make a sound like an exploding firework, but despite the fact that we are witnessing mass vaporizing in an explosion of heat and brightness, nearly all meteors make no sound. The occasional fireball that is of massive proportion (such as a recent fireball over Canada) are the extremely rare spectacles that might create some local sound.
Meteor showers are annual events that are specifically tied to a time of year and a location in the sky from which the meteors all appear to radiate. For 2009, I am going to make a point of seeing more of these. Typically meteor showers peak after midnight and are best seen when there is no interference from the moon. So for the 10-12 major showers that occur in a year, the phase of the moon will make some of them easier to see than others. Of course, weather plays a role like it does for any other astronomical viewing - the clearer the atmosphere, the better the viewing. And of course the darker the sky, the more meteors you will see. Last night was a chance alignment of nearly all these factors: no clouds, clear atmosphere and no moon. So I jumped at the opportunity to enjoy the sight of the Quadrantid meteors. Even in the city lights of San Francisco the conditions were favorable enough to see some.
The informative astronomy website EarthSky has an excellent summary of the major meteor showers in 2009. Mark your calendar and plan to see a few - they are truly beautiful to witness.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Brushes with Greatness: My Ten Thrilling Celebrity Sightings of 2008
Living in New York City has a few minuses, to be sure. But the pluses far outweigh them, especially if you're an attentive and active movie lover such as myself. One of those benefits is being able to see and even talk to your favorite film and media stars. They're milling about all over the place up here--appearing at film festivals, special screenings, and even just going about their daily
Brushes with Greatness: My Ten Thrilling Celebrity Sightings of 2008
Living in New York City has a few minuses, to be sure. But the pluses far outweigh them, especially if you're an attentive and active movie lover such as myself. One of those benefits is being able to see and even talk to your favorite film and media stars. They're milling about all over the place up here--appearing at film festivals, special screenings, and even just going about their daily
Friday, January 2, 2009
Best of the Movies: 2008
For me, this past year was all about:The Fall (Tarsem Singh)Synecdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman)Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)The Wrestler (Darrin Aronofsky)Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)In Bruges (Martin McDonagh) Smiley Face (Gregg Araki)The Promotion (Steve Conrad)Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller)JCVD (Mabrouk El
Best of the Movies: 2008
For me, this past year was all about:The Fall (Tarsem Singh)Synecdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman)Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt)The Wrestler (Darrin Aronofsky)Paranoid Park (Gus Van Sant)Wall-E (Andrew Stanton)Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)In Bruges (Martin McDonagh) Smiley Face (Gregg Araki)The Promotion (Steve Conrad)Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)Tropic Thunder (Ben Stiller)JCVD (Mabrouk El
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Film #100, and The Best Movie of 2008: The Fall (and Its Most Overrated Movie: The Dark Knight)
In the spring of 2008, I was wandering around New York City when I saw a stunning poster plastered all over a city wall.Always on the lookout for new movie posters (which trump trailers as my preferred way of being notified about new films), I saw this masterful work of art glued to these battered bits of particle board and exclaimed inside "WHAT IS THIS??" I read the fine print. At the top, it
Film #100, and The Best Movie of 2008: The Fall (and Its Most Overrated Movie: The Dark Knight)
In the spring of 2008, I was wandering around New York City when I saw a stunning poster plastered all over a city wall.Always on the lookout for new movie posters (which trump trailers as my preferred way of being notified about new films), I saw this masterful work of art glued to these battered bits of particle board and exclaimed inside "WHAT IS THIS??" I read the fine print. At the top, it
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