Space Weather News for Oct. 21, 2011
http://spaceweather.com
WEEKEND METEOR SHOWER: Today Earth is entering a stream of debris from Halley's comet, source of the annual Orionid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on Saturday morning, Oct. 22nd, with more than 15 meteors per hour. Check http://spaceweather.com for links to a live meteor radar, sky maps and observing tips.
MASSIVE SATELLITE NEARS RE-ENTRY: The massive ROSAT X-ray space telescope is making its final spiralling orbits around Earth. Most experts agree that re-entry will occur during the early hours of Oct. 23rd over a still-unknown region of our planet. Sky watchers report that the descending satellite can be as bright as a first magnitude star and it occasionally "flares" to even greater intensity. For last-chance sightings of ROSAT in your area, please check SpaceWeather's online satellite tracker (http://spaceweather.com/flybys) or turhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifn your smartphone into a ROSAT tracker: http://simpleflybys.com .
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For the Orionid Meteor Shower, PAS is hosting a public star party / meteor shower viewing, at a member's home in Carefree. RSVP is with Mike if you wish to attend. RSVP by tonight 480-488-3031 for map and directions, and if you are joining us for Pizza Party at $1 / slice, email Terri Events@pasaz.org with head count and slice count. The pizza order goes in noon Saturday. More details can be found at this link: http://www.pasaz.org/forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&e=701&day=2011-10-22&c=1
Terri, Events Coordinator
Email: Events@PASAz.org
Phoenix Astronomical Society
