Murphy's Laws of meteor astronomy
Dec 17th
- Four mutually exclusive things: clear skies, no moon, no school(work) and major shower peaks.
- Meteor activity will be low until you decide to take a break.
- Meteor activity will be low until you fall asleep.
- While watching a major shower you will see only one meteor in several minutes, many will appear while you're recording the lone meteor you saw.
- If you're facing north, most meteors will appear in the south.
- When you turn south, most meteors will appear in the north.
- When you install a fisheye meteors will disappear altogether.
- When a fireball appears you will invariably be looking 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
- When a fireball appears you will invariably be looking at the ground.
- When a fireball appears you will invariably be recording a +5m meteor.
- When a possible minor shower meteor appears you will remember its path, but you will forget its direction.
- When a possible minor shower meteor appears a gust of wind will appear out of nowhere and blow your charts downhill.
- Meteor activity will be nonexistent until you must take a sanitary break.
- Meteor activity will be low until you become really hungry.
- The diameter of stars is linearly proportional to your teff.
- The number of meteors is exponentially proportional to your teff.
- During an uncharacteristic stretch of clear skies the peak night will be cloudy.
- Your taperecorder will die during the most active period.
- Your pencil will die during your most active period.
- Your torch will die during the most active period.
- A possible minor shower meteor will invariably appear in Camelopardalis.
- A fireball will invariably appear in Camelopardalis.
- A fireball will invariably appear in your camera's field of view in between exposures.
- A fireball will invariably miss your camera's field of view by a couple degrees.
- When a fireball appears it will invariably appear in the part of the sky that's not on your charts.
- When it's clear your LM will be poor.
- If your LM is great you will either become sleepy or fog will lift.
- Fog will lift anyway.
- If the weather is poor and you go chasing clear skies, it will eventually be clear home.
- The largest telescopes you've ever seen will invariably be present during the peak night.
- The radiant of a very weak possible new shower will invariably be best placed for observations in early April evenings.
- Two mutually exclusive things - clear skies and no moon.
- If it's clear all day, it'll be cloudy that night.
- You will invariably be grounded due to committments during those LM7 nights.
- If it's clear and there's no Moon, it will be brutally cold and the wind will be blowing like a hurricane.
- When you catch a fireball on your camera the photo will be out of focus.
- Perfect photos will be ruined by the lab.
- The product of the number of shower meteors and the desire for their processing has a constant value.
- If you observe 364 nights a year, the outburst will happen in the 365th.
- If you observe 365 nights a year, there will be no outburst.
- Your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend's birthday will be on January 3, August 12, November 18 or December 14.
- If you observe from your backyard your neighbour's dog will have a sleep disorder.
- If you observe from your backyard your neighbour will have a sleep disorder and spend the night in a brightly lit kitchen, which will invariably be facing your backyard.
- If it's been clear whole July and up to August 12, the latter date will invariably be cloudy.
- If it is by some coincidence clear it will be unseasonably cold.
- If winter has been mild so far there will be a blizzard on December 14 and your favorite observing spot will be burried under a meter of snow.
- You will catch a cold on December 13.
- You will get over the cold quickly but you will be ill again on January 3.
- Your mid-term exam will be on January 4.
- When you arrive to your favorite spot for the Geminids you will forget: gloves, extra socks, warm drinks.
- You won't observe the Geminids since it's full Moon.
- If it's not full Moon you will be under the only cloud within miles.
- You will always enjoy clear skies when the Moon is full. You won't when it is new Moon.
- If an outburst is predicted it will occur 16 hours earlier and you will miss it.
- If you prepare and observe 16 hours earlier there will be no outburst.
- If its crystal clear there will be a lone patch of cirrus passing during the outburst.
- It will always be clear during the nights before the maximum from a big meteor shower. The maximum night will be clouded out.
- There is no such thing as luck.
- If there is, luck has nothing to do with it.
- There is always this observer in Florida Keys/Sacramento Mountains/Mauna Kea...
- Sooner or later there will be a streetlight installed that illuminates your backyard.
- When you go break it, you will invariably get caught.
- If you don't get caught you get electrocuted.
- Your tape will get jammed during highest activity.
- In March or April your tape will get jammed in early evening and you won't notice it till morning twilight.
- You're smart and you record your meteors on paper. In morning twilight there will be a gust of wind and it will blow your paper away and you will never see it again.
- Your alarm clock will fail you.
- Your backup alarm clock will fail you too.
- Your backup backup alarm clock will fail you as well.
- Zzzz...
- You will unkowingly lie down on a small rock. By morning twilight it will feel like a house sized boulder.
- There is no such thing as luck.
- If there is, luck has nothing to do with it.
- If your neighbours don't have a sleep disorder and don't have a dog, they will invariably have a large tree that will block out a good part of your field of view.
- No, they will not cut it down.
- After you've seen a good display there will always be this guy in Florida Keys/Sacramento Mountains/Mauna Kea who will have his LM a full magnitude better and will have seen many more meteors.
- After you've seen a poor display there will always be this guy in Florida Keys/Sacramento Mountains/Mauna Kea who will have his LM a full magnitude better and will have seen a great display.
- Leonids don't peak over your longitude.
- There will always be this guy in your group with 0.5mag better LM.
- There will always be this guy who logs 300+hrs teff every year.
- If you leave your meteor observing form on your table your dog will chew it.
- If you operate 7 cameras and have 95% sky coverage, the fireball will appear in the uncovered 5%.
- If fog lifts it will invariably be 3m higher than you can possibly get. Above that it will be perfectly clear. Bortle Class 1.
- The Perseid peak and the only thunderstorm in summer will invariably overlap.
- If the sky clears after the thunderstorm and in time for the peak, fog will lift.
- Your photocopier will break down at 1am while reproducing your vital star charts.
- Your reclining chair will break down on August 12 at 7 pm.
- There will be a major (historical) auroral storm during the major shower peak. Next night there will be no aurora and no meteors.
- You began serious meteor astronomy career a couple of days after: Aug 13 1993, Nov 17 1998, Nov 18 1999...
- Draconid outbursts will ALWAYS occur over Japanese longitudes.
- Sooner or later you will receive a visit by a friendly hedgehog. Sooner or later you will receive a visit by a not so friendly wild boar.
- You will get distracted by a small rodent in the same instant a fireball appears.
- If you brought N pencils you will always need N+1 pencils.
- There will be a supernova during a Leonid meteor storm.
- There is no such thing as luck.
- If there is, luck has nothing to do with it.
- Meteor predictions will be accurate forever, until you decide to observe.
- The more inconspicous the stream, the more likely it is to outburst. You will therefore miss most (all) outbursts.
- If there is an outburst, you will be caught unprepared.
- Bright fireballs won't happen to you.
- If your taperecorder and talking watch work well, there will be nothing to record.
- Most of your 'observing expeditions' will end with an 'I should've stayed home'.
- The ones you stay home are the most successfull.
- You will be ridiculed for your fireball observation, since there was obviously an alien invasion.
- If a storm is predicted, the radiant is in south hemisphere.
- The radiant is located 1 degree below horizon, at your radio-scattering observing site.
- There will never be observers at the right place to observe your predicted maximum. So you will never know if your predictions are right or wrong.
- If theory is right, there is no observer. If theory is wrong, there are lot of observers.
- Your predicted maximum occurs when the radiant is above the middle of Pacific ocean, Antartica or South Africa.
Quoted from MBK Team at http://www.orion-drustvo.si/MBKTeam/meteors/murphy.htm
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