Solar activity continues to be high - relative to the non-activity in the past, that is

It were the sunpot groups (1)1045 and 46 in particular that caused excitement (more coverage here, hier und hier): the Sun on Feb. 15 and Feb. 7, a big prominence and more on Jan. 30/31, a flare on Feb. 12 and a CME on Jan. 27. • From the annular solar eclipse a month ago a video from the Maldives (one of all too few with some editing before posting ...), a video from Varkala, a video from Rameswaran, a report from Kanyakumari and a lightcurve from Dhanushkody. The eclipse is also pic 18 here, seen at sunset from Japan with fine atmospheric effects (Omega phenomenon) and starring in a poorly edited TV clip (more). • For a change, a great amateur Moon picture and another one, both with extremely high resolution.

In other news Mars - a report from Mozambique - is still a fine sight, e.g. on Feb. 13, Feb. 9, Feb. 8, Feb. 6, Feb. 4, Feb. 2 (a picture with a 1-m telescope; more on the little dust storm), Feb. 1, Jan. 29 and Jan. 28 (the 1-m again); also a drawing of Jan. 18. • Low in the west, the Jupiter/Venus conjunction is now - while the stellar occultation by Pluto was clouded out all over Europe, it seems, but Pic du Midi reports success. • There may have been a new surge in comet SW 1: pictures of Feb. 8, Feb. 6, Feb. 5 (more from that place, another and another pic), Feb. 3 (more) and a story. • Also a nice tail of C/2007 Q3, a picture of 2010 A2 with a small scope - and nonsense regarding that object.

• There was a bolide in Ireland of which no footage seems to exist (more, more, more, more) - unfortunately an old fake video was accepted by all too many (such as this, this and this site) for the real thing ... • A fireball cloud from last November, another and another story on the fight over the 'doctor's office meteorite' and a possible impact site in Rajasthan. • An incident over Mexico was neither a particular reentry (earlier) nor was there a crater formed: confused coverage here, here, here, here, here and here. • Finally stories on the variable stars U Scorpii (a picture of Feb. 6) and Epsilon Aurigae. And the IAU Circulars are moving to a new - not too distant - place.

Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 in biggest outburst in a decade?

Spanish "data suggest that this comet is currently experiencing an unusual outburst, probably the brightest in the last decade according the recent photometric compilation," says an Astronomer's Telegram today: "Additional observations obtained in the last month suggest a progressive increase in activity from mid January from a quite inactive 40-days period in which the comet remained close to +16 R magnitude." Now the "object exhibits a stellar appearance in the images with an apparent diameter of 15 arcsec. The derived magnitude of the comet in a 10 arcsec standard photometry field is +11.7 R, +11.5 I, and +11.9 V." • Meanwhile a dramatic HST picture of the comet/asteroid collision product C/2010 A2 (mentioned last time) is everywhere and discussed e.g. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. • All the comets of 2010 are detailled in this document (PDF, 5 pg.). • A minor meteor outburst of the Gamma Ursae Minorids. • And the meteorite hitting a doctor's office in Virginia - also mentioned - is now being fought over as this, this, this and this story report.

Mars is now in opposition and very bright (as stories here, here and here explain): nice pictures from Feb. 2, Feb. 1, Jan. 30, Jan. 29, Jan. 26/27 (pairwise forming great stereo views, esp. 1+2, 3+4 and 4+5), Jan. 26 (more, more, more, more, more and more), Jan. 23 (more), Jan. 21 and Jan. 5; fresh planet images ago appear in this new gallery. • Pictures of the brightest-of-the-year-full Moon/Mars constellation of Jan. 30 from the Philippines, India (story) and Germany. • Students have recovered a Mars "companion", and asteroid on an horse-shoe orbit. • And a report about a grazing occultation of Antares by the Moon on Jan. 11.

Further reports on the annular eclipse of Jan. 15 have come in, which was a StarPeace event: from Uganda, Kenya, the Maldives (also pictures from Thulagiri and a report and more pictures from Club Faru), India's Varkala (a report and chemical pictures by yours truly and a great beads/chromosphere sequence, as an animation and picture series [use right arrow to forward] and another report with pictures from the S.P.A.C.E. expedition) and South tip (more), Myanmar (more and more) and China, plus impressions from the partial zone from Tanzania, Chennai and Coimbatore in India and Indonesia. Plus the view from space by the Proba 2 satellite, also shown here, here and here. And a German paper on an eclipse chaser. • Some coming attractions, based on this, this, this, this and these pages, among others:

• Feb. 9: PHA 2009 UN3 comes moderately close to Earth and should reach 12th mag.
  
  
• Feb. 10 or somewhat later: an evening visibility of Venus begins, lasting til the end of September
  
  
• Feb. 13: exoplanet XO-3b will transit its parent star, and a campaign - including a webcast of the event! - is planned
  
  
• Feb. 14: Pluto occults a moderately bright star, 11th mag. in the visible, brighter in the (infra-)red, for Europe - a rare event!
  
  
• Feb. 16/17: conjunction of Venus and Jupiter (evening visibility ending; conjunction on the 28th), about ½° apart in the morning UTC
  
  
• Feb. 18: asteroid (4) Vesta in opposition at 6.1 mag. - naked-eye in dark places
  
  
• Feb. 21: the Moon close to the Pleiades

In other news the recurrent nova U Sco is in outburst, discovered by amateur and the first eruption since 1999 - after studying historical plates this explosion was forecast with some confidence, and a network of observers was alerted; more coverage here, here and here - and X-ray observations by Swift. • The new Nova Sgr has faded fast as has Nova Oph. • And Epsilon Aurigae has reached totality some time in January, but keep watching it for brightness fluctuations! • A picture of NLCs from orbit, twittered by an astronaut, and a strange thing in the sky over China which was probably a rocket test, reminiscent of the one seen from Norway earlier - the latter was a failure, though, the Chinese one apparently a success (and the visual observations valuable). • Finally we learn that the CBAT is moving, to greener (no pun on Dan Green intended :-) pastures.

All the stuff that's fit to link about the thickest ring of fire of the millennium

And it's a lot: The annular eclipse with the smallest lunar/solar diameter ratio of the 3rd millennium (or the thickest ring - or the longest duration when near the point of maximum eclipse) of 15 January has been observed widely all along its track from Central and Eastern Africa over the Maldives, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, and pictures and reports are still coming in 9 days later. Thanks to TwitPic as well as eager Indian journalists, the small tour led by yours truly to Varkala, Kerala, India, and our results were mentioned quite often; these links are marked by an asterisk (*).

First some general galleries by Universe Today* (the only ones who asked for permission to use our pictures, by the way), SciBuff* (more*), Facebook*, InFuture* (in Russian!), SpaceWeather, KC Star, Telegraph, Nat'l Geographic, StumbleUpon, DJMick, BBC, ABC, Hindu, IndiaToday, HuffPost, Yahoo, Flickr, LifeBob and FunZug. Numerous reports are linked by SoFi2010 or published on EclipseChasers; there's also a chaotic video collage. Now individual reports from the annularity strip:

• From the Central African Republic come this, this and this image, from Uganda a spectacular video with Baily's Beads and a report and from Kenya a picture from Mt. Kenya at almost 5000 meters, a report, some pictures (more) and a report from Lake Nakuru, and from Nairobi a report. From the Maldives we have reports and pictures from Male (more), Ellaidhoo (APOD), Summer Island Village, Club Faru (more), Rangali and Meerufenfushi (more) - while a diver was caught by surprise. On a ship off the Maldives the eclipse was also observed during India's first-ever eclipse cruise.
  
  
• From India a Wiki on the eclipse (announcement) and a very detailled report by S.P.A.C.E. on events all over India (picture collection; alt.). From Varkala near the Northern edge pictures by yours truly* (access the earlier ones through the thumbnails on the right), T. Kampschulte*, W. v. Kerkhof* and a S.P.A.C.E. expedition: a Beads composite (two single images and a recording of their webcast). Also a report by accidental tourists. From Thiruvanantapuram & Kovalam these and these pictures, a report and a another one. From Rameswaram & Dhanushkodi a looong report (more, more and more) and pictures here (used for this funny composite), here, here, here and here. And from Kanyakumari a report (earlier) and pictures here, here, here, here and here.
  
  
• From Sri Lanka a blog report, another and another one (pictures; preparations) from a politically charged trip to Jaffna, where also these pictures come from. Plus a commentary on new vs. old media coverage of the eclipse. From Myanmar these and these pictures from Shwe Bo City. And from China a collection and pictures and reports from Shenyang, Weizhan Lake, Qingdao, Zhengzhou and Kalfeng. Some impressions from the zone of partiality come from Pune, Bhuj, Bangalore, Delhi (more), Manila (AAPOD - clever setup; more), Beijing (another surprise observation; more) and Sounio.

News coverage of the eclipse was generous - first from individual countries. From Uganda this story. From the Maldives this story and a strange one (relating to this fringe science). From India a TV debate on eclipse superstitions (also this clip) and stories here, here*, here*, here*, here* (more*), here*, here, here, here (alt.), here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Specifically about sounding rockets fired for geophysical studies during the eclipse are an ISRO Press Release and stories here, here, here and here, while here lots more stories are linked.

From Bangladesh stories here, here and here, from China this and this story, and stories about the eclipse worldwide here* (alt.*, alt.*, alt.*, alt.*, in Spanish* and in French*), here*, here*, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, hier, hier, hier, hier*, hier, hier und hier. The eclipse led to a brief surge in web searches; many more pre-eclipse stories can be found here!

In other Sun-related news the sunspot situation on Jan. 23, the big group #1040 (earlier) which was also visible during the eclipse. • There is also a new method to predict flares, and during recent total solar eclipses the corona has been imaged in a new light by Fe XI. • From the partial lunar eclipse preceding the ASE we have further pictures from the Philippines taken with unusual equipment (an AstroScan!) and from India (more, more). • It is also noteworthy that the upcoming full moon will be the biggest of the year.

Other happenings in the sky in the past three weeks

A small asteroid came moderately close to Earth (with some speculation that it may be related to the Venus Express mission): NEO News (alt.) about 2010 AL30, a radar detection, the Cosmic Diary (earlier), Remanzacco (earlier), Transient Sky (earlier), Planetary Society (earlier, still earlier), SpaceWeather, KosmoLogs and news coverage e.g. here (blog), here, here, here, here, here, here and hier and pictures and movies here, here, here and here. • There has been an arrest in connection with the 2008 TC3 meteorites in Sudan (also here and here). • A meteorite hit a dentist's office in Virginia, as reported here, here, here, here, here, here and hier - and another meteo-wrong.

The Curious Case of Comet P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) is discussed by TransientSky, Discovery, AstroEngine, S&T and AstroFan80 - did we witness a collision in the asteroid belt? • There was another sungrazer, quickly gone, while from the previous one we have further pictures & videos, a report (more), a movie (hectic and alt. versions) and stills from C2 (more) and from C3. • Comet C/2007 Q3 with a globular cluster (NGC 5466), and 81P/Wild on Jan. 20 and Jan. 2.

Mars is approaching opposition now: some pictures of Jan. 22, Jan. 21, Jan. 18, Jan. 15, Jan. 4 (more and one in 3D ...) and Jan. 2. • Epsilon Aurigae has now reached minimum (more and more reports); there is a possible explanation for the system, but many questions remain open. • A new nova has gone off in Sagittarius. • An amateur astrononomer has found a mistake in the Arp Atlas: abstract, story, press release, conference report, another one! • Free for all: a Sky & Tel. story (PDF) on Amateur Spacecraft Imaging. • And finally the Sun and the Telegraph hail an amateur astronomer and "space fanatic" ...

Bright sungrazing comet in SOHO's field of view right now!

It was discovered by an amateur Dec. 30 on STEREO images, but now it can be seen clearly in images from SOHO's LASCO C3 coronagraph: In the last hours the brightness of the - now saturated - comet has risen to zero or -1 mag. Somewhat more predictable events in January (see lists and articles here, here, here, here, hier, hier, hier und hier) include

• Jan. 3 around 19:00 UTC (or perhaps a few hours earlier) the peak of the Quadrantids - unfortunately bathed in moonlight,
  
  
• Jan. 15 an annular eclipse of the Sun for East Africa, India and China,
  
  
• Jan. 29 the opposition of Mars, shining at -1.3 mag. with a 14" disk (on which a lot can already be discerned; see below).

There are also a preview for the full year and a lot of links to reviews of the past one. (In other comet news a lot of great Halley pictures from 1985/6 have now been scanned and put online; from current comets we have C/2007 Q3 on Dec. 25 and 81P on Dec. 19).

In other news the ZHR profile of the Geminids of 2009 can be interpreted as a drawn out plateau of perhaps a double peak - in any case, most of the activity came many hours early! There is one famous picture (explained here), a composite shows 34 GEM in one view (more composites) - and an IMO spokesman on TV! • A bolide in China may have dropped meteorites - and the hunt is on again after an old fall in the U.S. • A star occultation by (599) Luisa was very well observed in Europe: reports here (ctd.) and here. • 2009 YE9 is the biggest KBO find in 5 years, among many hundreds.

• The partial lunar eclipse of 31 Dec. or 1 Jan. was a webcast-only event for many, but great pictures were possible e.g. in Athens, the Philippines, Mallorca, Malaysia, Spain, Dublin, Sri Lanka or Chennai (more previews here, here, hier, hier or here; some don't get it at all, though ...) • From the July 22 total solar eclipse a Japanese satellite view, Indian picture collections and a late trip report. • A stellar occultation by the Moon observed in India.

• Solar activity is finally rising, at least w.r.t. the number of non-spot-free days ... December brought something to see indeed, on the 19th, 18th (at sunset), 17th, 16th (more, more; earlier) and 15th (more, more and a movie until the 15th). • Also the "fingerprint" of the new cycle, how the low EUV flux cools the upper atmosphere, how the Sun is innocent in global warming (more) and 10 years of AcrimSat monitoring the solar 'constant'.

• Great hi-res views of Mars from Jan. 1, Dec. 29, Dec. 28, Dec. 27, Dec. 14 and Dec. 5. • Mercury, Jupiter and Moon constellations on Dec. 21 (more), Dec. 20 (more), Dec. 19 (all three from Oz), Dec. 18 and Dec. 17. • Jupiter & Neptune on Dec. 25 and Dec. 11. • Epsilon Aurigae images and reports of Dec. 19, Dec. 15 and Dec. 14 and a Delta Cephei lightcurve obtained with a simple digital camera. • Deep sky drawings from India. • An accidental green segment image. • A winter star party ... in Austria! • A Dark Sky Park in California. • And Indians going for Jovian radio emmissions.

Moon-free Geminids and a lunar micro-eclipse conclude International Year of Astronomy

From an observational point of view the International Year of Astronomy was not that outstanding, with respect to both planned and unplanned sky events, apart perhaps from the longest total solar eclipse of the century and surprisingly strong - but Moon-lit - Perseids. The final month, though, brings perhaps the best "unlit" meteors of the year and concludes with a shallow partial lunar eclipse on new year's eve (though it's already 2010 then in Asia).

• Dec. 14 around 5:10 UTC: (Broad) peak of the Geminids; their performance is tracked here, there's a growing gallery here and some previews are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, plus thoughts about their parent body (also from 2007).
  
  
• Dec. 16: Jupiter just 7' from 6 mag. star 45 Cap.
  
  
• Dec. 18 evening: Very young Moon close to Mercury which just begins a poor evening visibility, lasting til about Dec. 23.
  
  
• Dec. 21: Jupiter and Neptune in conjunction - at 0.5° - for a third time this year but close to each other the whole month.
  
  
• Dec. 31 18:52-19:54 UTC: Partial eclipse of the Moon, but even at the 19:23 UTC peak only 2.5% of the disk will be in the umbra.

The celestial "highlight" of the past two weeks was man-made: A failed Russian military rocket test launch created an amazing luminous spiral in Norway's skies early on Dec. 10. News and blog reports, often with great pictures, are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, hier, hier, hier, hier, here, here (earlier), here, here and here. Amazingly the phenomenon was repeated over Siberia just a day later ... • Talking about natural sky shows, a late report on the South African bolide, an analysis of the Utah bolide - and comet 107P did not form a coma on Dec. 4 (or before or since), so it's probably truly dead but still raises questions galore.

In other news the stellar occultation of (234) Barbara led to this shape, discussed in this movie and based on these observers. So the U.S. effort worked very well; in Europe only a few were successful, too. • Epsilon Aurigae news from Dec. 8 and amateur spectra; also of Nova Scuti and Nova Eridani (which is really one). • A solar prominence on Nov. 28. • Exciting lunar (also discussed here) and solar halos from Finland - and the top places to see the aurora. • Stories about the Chromoscope website here, here, here, here and here, a Hubble advent calendar, a comic (!) about the 1994 Jupiter impact observations with Hubble and the whereabouts of all our spacecraft in the solar system this month.

Two well-videotaped bolides, right after poorly performing Leonids

Once it was a rarity that a meteor fireball was accidentally caught by a surveillance or a police car dashboard camera - but now it has happened twice within three days, first in the U.S. during the maximum night of the (otherwise unimpressive) Leonids and unrelated to them, then in South Africa. • From the South African bolide of 21 November an overview & many reports, a video (also here, plus three stills), a different video (also here and here), a video of the sky brightening and more news coverage here, here and here. • From the November 18 bolide over Utah which caused a lot of excitement (and was also seen from other states) many videos exist, e.g. shown here (nice TV report), here and here, also this (also here), this, this, this, this, this and this one. One could try to triangulate a possible strewn field, unfortunately in a restricted area, to the chagrin of would-be meteorite hunters ... A report, several more, the residual cloud in the sky and a lot of coverage here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, with more news linked here, here, here, here and here.

The Leonids of 2009, according to the worldwide visual data as of today, fell below even the most pessimistic predictions, with a peak ZHR of barely 100 (around 20:30 UTC on Nov. 17) - this would be less than half of what any of the three Perseids peaks reached this year: an early summary and links collection just 24 hours later, another early summary, more reports - and videos! - from the Philippines, Singapore, Nepal, India (again, plus preparations), Canada and the U.S., a picture, a less than informative wire story, one more model, a preview of net sources and more, more and more previews (also a bad and another bad one). • More recent fireball reports here (hi-res pic), here, here, here, here and here and stories about the European Network of fireball cameras and an Aussie meteorite problem. • The Barbara occultation event was observed: Here is a one lightcurve apparently confirming its binarity. • Cometwise we have C/2007 Q3 in the Virgo Cluster: pictures of Nov. 13 and Nov. 25 - plus a call for vigilance re. 107P.

In other news modest activity on the Sun (but a nice prominence and news about solar 'tsunamis' and a possible climate role in past centuries). • The eclipse of Eps Aur is progressing, a nova in Scu reached 7th mag. while Nova Eri even reached 5th mag. (but now it's down to 8 mag.), Mira is near maximum, Eta Car is brightening and should be watched as might be Zeta Aur. • There are now 50 named moons of Jupiter. • A nice video of the Oct. 21 Antares occultation by the Moon. • An amateur observatory designed with wheelchairs in mind. • A new Galaxy Zoo project involving galaxy mergers (more, more, more, more, more, more und mehr. • And finally four amateur astronomy personality stories about Jones, Boles, Legault and Mellinger.

RANT EXTRA: On the state of the astro-blogosphere

(Too) much has been written lately on how old-fashioned journalism is gonna die and to be replaced by blogs or tweets or wiki-whatevers. In the field of science and esp. space-related reporting the borders are blurred anyway, and the volume of 'copy' produced by bloggers is way outweighing the classical formats in any case. Just watch what the blog feed catcher of the Portal to the Universe (in the creation of which this blogger was actually involved) sucks in all the time. There is a lot of redundancy here, as noted by the PTTU editors early on, often little more than copy-&-past-ing of press releases, and only occasional original work. The watchdog function many blogs in the political area play is mostly missing - and just recently so many examples of poor reporting and/or judgement have come across my screen that this rant just had to get out. I won't name - or link to - individual 'sinners' here: You know who you are, as do your readers. Three examples:

• On Nov. 5 the British Natural History Museum put online a story about a meteorite with unusual properties that had been recovered thanks to an Australian camera network imaging its fall. Many blogs, including several 'famous' ones, treated this as a news story - when in fact the respective paper had been published in Science on Sep. 18, together with a press release by CSIRO and lots of timely news coverage, e.g. in the New Scientist. Apparently none of the blogger stars had recalled this major astronomy news event from less than two months ago - what does it say about how serious they are with their reporting work? Particularly shocking is that this oversight happened to a number of the 'big names' in the business.
  
  
• There have been two 'incidents' with minute asteroids of 5 to 10 meters in diameter recently, one exploding over Indonesia on Oct. 8, the other missing Earth on Nov. 6. While the former case was at least unusual (bodies of this size hit Earth only every few years), the latter was not as similar approaches to Earth w/o impact are ten times as frequent. Yet there were those blog stories again about how Earth just escaped another "asteroid" collision. Of course nothing other than an Indonesia-style fireball would have occurred, and no distinction between harmless airbursting rocks and dangerous bodies of 25+ meters was made or at least emphasized. The headlines should have been "Earth missed another nice bolide event" ... but instead we got served the dire view that these (non-)cases are further proof that Earth is defenseless against grave danger from space - which does exist, of course, but on an entirely different scale.
  
  
• One week from now the Leonid meteors may or may not produce a decent shower when the Earth encounters some dust trails left by the parent comet. Last year a crude model calculation by a French astronomer (now working at Caltech) had predicted a maximum Zenithal Hourly Rate - i.e. meteor/hour under the best possible viewing conditions - of 500 or more: This would have qualified as half a "storm", reminding meteor veterans of great drama a decade ago, and the prediction was picked up by NASA and even by the IAU in an IYA press release. But this high prediction always stood alone, with other experienced theorists predicting a much smaller outburst. Still NASA ignored the doubts and many bloggers - with rare exceptions - took the 500+ figure for granted, until today. Alas, some time ago the theorist retracted it and is now predicting some 200, while the main 'competitor' is at around 175 and yet another pioneer of the field sees around 100. Even NASA conceded today that the 500 are history (but still thinks 300 possible without presenting the calculations leading to this).

The same NASA website that promoted the high prediction (and was not particularly successful in picking the right model with other meteor events in the past) may also have played a - minor - role in the ongoing 2012 'end of the world' nonsense. For when it came to predictions of how high the next maximum of solar activity might be, it strongly promoted one theorist whose results were at the very high end. And when a big panel of solar physicists in 2007 determined that the next peak would be average at best and almost certainly not high, this finding - reinforced two years later - wasn't communicated well. It's hard to prove causalities in this emotionally charged field of astronomy, but said NASA site is being copied-and-pasted (and absorbed, one would think) a lot, especially by astronomy aficionados not necessarily reading the original literature. And now I hear the makers of the "2012" movie premiering this week in a making-of on German TV (last Sunday) stating as an undisputed scientific fact that the coming solar maximum will be extremely high. Who else is wondering where that "information" came from? And now back to our regular fare of actual astronomy news that are new and correct ...

Pretty unusual stellar occultation by an asteroid highlight of November

Asteroids are always causing interest, be it a discovery in New Zealand or a very small one occulting a very bright star along a narrow strip (so far either negative or clouded-out reports have been received). A more promising and scientifically important event is coming up on the morning of Nov. 21, however, when (234) Barbara hits at 7.5 mag. star - and this asteroid is double and has been measured by optical interferometry. Chords from the occultation - visible in Florida and Europe - would provide a crucial test of this method and could actually deliver higher resolution. Other than that only the Leonids (with a max. ZHR between 150 and 200 according to the latest models) and a Jupiter/Moon conjunction on Nov. 23 seem to be important in November; other previews here, hier, hier, hier and/und hier.

In other news three comets in one picture (one undiscovered at the time), two comets in one view and LINEAR on Oct. 26 and Oct. 24. • Just for the record another impact hoax, this time in Latvia and obviously faked from the video alone (more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more and more links, more or less enlightened). • Detailed analysis of an Antares occultation by the Moon. • Mars inside Messier 44 (a preview and Mars close-up) plus a Moon/Jupiter conjunction from the Philippines. • The largest sunspot in ages on Oct. 30, Oct. 28 (more) and Oct. 26 (more). • Nova Sgr 2009 #4 (more). • A Bright Star Monitor at work. • The Mellinger mosaic has now a press release, copied e.g. here and here. • What an almost blind astronomer can do. • An ISS/Moon transit from Germany. • And a fullmoon rainbow in the headlines.

An Orionids "peak" that never ends? ZHR ~40 for 3+ days now

Expectations were for a prolonged maximum of the Orionids meteor shower this year, but with a more or less distinct peak either early on Oct. 21 or Oct. 22. Instead the activity remains high at a level of roughly ZHR ~40 since early October 20 - for three full days now and with no drop-off in sight. Some pictures, a report on the long maximum (earlier, still earlier), some analysis and for the record further previews here, here, here (earlier), here and here. • Finally some consensus re. the Leonids this year is building: The "500 or more" modeller has come down to ~200 as the max. ZHR - and his main 'competitor' is up to ~175. So it'll be a shower a bit below the Perseids this year? But in any case with less lunar interference! • The Canadian September bolide has led to several meteorite discoveries! A press release, an earlier one and coverage here and here. • From the Dutch/N German bolide much better pictures and stories here, here, here, here, here, here, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier, hier (mehr), hier and/und hier.

In other minor body news such a body of 5 to 10 meters exploded over Indonesia on Oct. 8 (well studied thanks to infrasound recordings), while a rock of similar size safely passed Earth a week later - and the exact events around the case of 2008 TC3 and the political 'impact' are still debated. • Meanwhile the largest NEO discovery in over one year has been reported (and doubted!); with a H~16 the size is around 2 km. • And in Russia a meteorite. • Elsewhere in the solar system comet 217P/LINEAR suffered an outburst - while never exceeding 10th mag., the comet looked a bit like 17P/Holmes in good pictures initially. Here are some of Oct. 22, Oct. 18 (more), Oct. 17 (more, more, more, more), Oct. 16 (more), Oct. 15 (more, more), Oct. 14 (more, more) and Oct. 13, plus a visual report from Sep.; the Indian observer wasn't impressed.

In other news a Moon/Antares appulse (actual occultation missed) and the morning planet/Moon arrangements of Oct. 16 in Germany and Italy and on Oct. 15 (more), Oct. 14 in the U.S. and Germany (sequence 1 - 2 - 3 and more) and Oct. 13, plus several more pictures. • STEREO images of a big prominence (alt.; more). • As this blogger also confirmed visually this morning, Epsilon Aurigae is at 3.4 mag., half-way between max. and min. The eclipse may have been delayed a bit - and while visual estimates are easy, though some)(it's easy, they can be off by several tenths of a mag., depending on the eye). • Will R CrB ever become bright again? The current minimum lasts 2+ years already! • Another amateur exoplanet detection. • Stellar occultations by Minerva are worth observing. • predicted effects from unusual experiments (see 16:37 entry) during a rocket launch led to weird sky effects over South Africa and Europe; see also here! • Finally winners of an astrophoto competition and another near-space balloon flight just for fun.