@booboo said in Star Gazing:
Just saw amazing shooting star.
No doubt re-entry of space junk.
Went and leaned on balcony looking for breeze and looked up toward Orion (east-ish) and massive trail blazed past southerly-ish.
3 or 4 secs. As clear as ye olde worlde Guy Fawkes skye rocket. (It wasn't.)
So cool.
Maybe space junk, maybe not.
Saw an amazing one night before last too so had a look to see what was going on (good website this):
Look Up to See the Geminids Light Up the Night Skies
Look Up to See the Geminids Light Up the Night Skies
Check out our meteor shower animation to find out how, where, and when to see these shooting stars.
"The Geminids are considered to be one of the most spectacular meteor showers of the year, with the possibility of sighting around 120 meteors per hour at its peak, which is on December 13 or 14, depending on your time zone."
The geminids were peak over AKL but would have visible to you and went from 3 Dec to 19th.
Given my previous life involved thousands of hours of staring mindlessly at stars in the middle of the night, I have seen some pretty cool shooting stars, but the other night was as good as I have seen from the ground (no light pollution at my place). Better from 30,000+ feet but very cool none the less.
Probably the most awe-inspiring thing that I have ever seen was a Leonid shower over Northern Alaska with the Aurora as a backdrop. Streams of shooting stars crisscrossing the sky with purple and green wavering curtains all around. Felt like we were just sitting in the middle of it as the stars appeared to even fall below us with our altitude and angle of view. The tropopause at that latitude is so low that the whole show was crystal clear and obviously no light pollution, just staggeringly beautiful.