(Machine translation by DeepL + adjustments by Gyegyopon, Translated article written for Japan without major changes, Sorry some Japanese language is still there)
Hello, this is Gyegyopon.
In December 2023, I watched the Geminids meteor shower with a dog on the night when the meteor shower activity reached its maximum.
I didn’t count properly, but we were able to see about 15 meteors. I tried to take a picture, but unfortunately I couldn’t capture any of them.
I hope you enjoy this article if you are interested in stargazing with your dog.
Main text
Outline
After finishing dinner, I looked at the sky and saw quite a few stars, although the sky was not clear. I decided to move to an open space with few street lights, about a 15-minute walk away, and start looking at the stars. The weather forecast said that the weather would gradually get worse, so we started stargazing a little earlier, before 20:00. From then until about 23:00, the stars were visible and not visible for 3 hours.
After that it became completely cloudy, so I stopped looking at the stars, but it cleared up again on my way back from the plaza. There were streetlights in the area that did not allow us to see the stars very well, but even there we watched the sky for a while.
I was glad that I did not stay in the plaza for a long time, because after that it started raining downpour.
Some meteors appeared during the clearing, and I was able to see about 15 meteors in all. Some meteors were visible behind light clouds.
I also tried to take pictures, but unfortunately none of the meteors showed up.
Stargazing with dog
I took my dog to the plaza and we looked at the starry sky together (also the dog?).
I didn’t use a flash because the flash light would have made our eyes unaccustomed to the darkness.
The temperature was relatively high, maybe over 10 degrees Celsius, so the dof did not seem to be cold even without clothes, and the people were able to stay in light clothing for a winter night.
Although it was comfortable, insects seemed to be active even in December, and I was bitten in nearly 10 places on my hands.
Stargazing
Clouds were constantly rolling in and never completely gone. Often all the stars were hidden by clouds and not visible at all.
At its best, the sky looked like this.
Jupiter is obscured by light clouds. Some parts of stars are not visible because they are hidden by clouds.
I made a time-lapse movie of about one hour reduced to about 20 seconds so that you can see the clouds rolling in one after another1. (The image may be dark and difficult to see, so please watch it in a darkened room.)
Then, I composed the photos into a single image.
The stars are hidden by the clouds as they are moving in their diurnal motion, so each star is now an interrupted line.
Related Information
Reference
- Perfect Conditions for the Geminids Meteor Shower in 2023 (this blog)
- SiriusComp (free comparison brightness composite software)
Other
脚注
- I used a free software called “SiriusComp“.
