Pierre St. Hilaire wrote:
> Everyone on this list should drop any plans they have for
> tonight and run for the hills. Call in sick, get a nanny or
> bring the kids, whatever, but DO NOT MISS THIS EVENT....
And while you're about it, if you've got a 10-inch or larger 'scope, make certain you check out asteroid Hermes! (http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/asteroids/article_1083_1.asp) Just follow this baby for an hour or so; you'll be amazed by its movement. Okay, so I'm not exactly a Shallow-Sky kind of guy, but this is worth tracking. On Saturday night I roughly estimated a movement rate of 6-arcsecs/hour, which is about 2.5-deg./day. I still need to check my plots from last night to see how much it's changed. While about mag. 13.5 or so now, Hermes probably won't get more than another 0.2~0.3 mag. brighter before starting to fade. Current guesstimates say it'll stay about this magnitude through Nov. 2nd or so, but will drop to 15th mag. by Nov. 6th. Nov. 7th, 16th mag. Nov. 8th, 17th. mag. You get the picture!
...Bob...
Bob Czerwinski