Comet Like Meteor, Conjunctions, The Sasktchewan Meteor And A Special Cameo Appearance Of The Runaway Tool Kit

Okay, I got a new favorite meteor image. You're probably thinking, Bob, it's a small one, you've taken better, well thank you, but this is my new favorite, just look at it, all comet like and cute and small and such, plus the way in how I captured it is very cool.

I was taking an image of the Venus Jupiter gathering when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a bright object moving very fast, fine I thought it was a jet at first, but it wasn't leaving any contrails behind, there were quite a few jets out that night and all were slower and left contrails, plus it was going back and forth, almost in a straight line, then vanishing.

Moved my camera towards the last spotted location, thinking great something cool and unusual, took a test shot, and waited, and waited but it never came back. Thought oh well probably some kind of UFO, or test jet, meteors or I was just seeing things.

The next morning I was going through my images of Venus and Jupiter, totally forgot about my encounter of the whatever kind when I noticed there was something on my test shot, a little comet like meteor. Now the ISO was 3200, exposure .25 seconds, so the chances of me catching a meteor in that time frame were slim to nil, very cool, so now it's my fav.


Here is your last notice from me for what NASA is calling the "Best sky show of the year", and it looks like I'm going to miss it, calling for clouds on that day here. On December 1 just after Sunset look to the South West for an awesome conjunction of the crescent Moon, Jupiter and Venus, Venus being just below and to the left of Jupiter and the Moon above the both of them.


The next major conjunction will be December 28th, The Moon, Jupiter and Mercury will be in a straight line grouping just after Sunset, again look to the South West for this gathering.

Just a little update on the Saskatchewan Meteor that occurred here November 20. There are all kinds of people looking for what they estimate to be hundreds of meteorites larger than 50 grams thought to have landed around the Saskatchewan Alberta boarder around Manitou Lake. One meteorite collector has offered $12,000 US for a kilogram sized chunk. If I didn't have work to contend with, that's where I would be, let me tell you.

I'm going to leave you now with a video of the ISS toolbag in space taken by satellite observer Kevin Fetter. To see the toolbag streak across the sky go here and type in your Postal or zip codes, it will give you the flyby times and the location in the sky. You will need binoculars, it will look like a faint moving satellite.