QUARDRANTIDS METEOR SHOWER Star Hustler Report

Quadrantids Meteor Shower This Week Jan. 2-5 , Look To N'east After Midnite And Bundle Up!

FUTURE TRAVEL GRIOT AND "WISCONSIN WALKER" EXPLORATIONS:

• ¿Was There a Pre-Clovis Village In Kenosha, Wisconsin?

• ¿Was There Ancient Knowledge of Precession Of Equinoxes?

• ¿How Far Back Does "Pre-History" Go?

• ¿Where Did White People Come From?

• ¿Are There Asian Pyramids Under the Ocean?

• ¿Was Atlantis on Greek Isle of Santorini, the Ancient Thera?

• Wis Walker in Italy: On The Trail Of "The Michelangelo Code"

by the Star Hustler

The Quadrantids Meteor Shower is the first such of these celestial displays that are up, so named after a defunct constellation named for a sighting instrument like the astrolabe.

To see the "Shooting Stars," with their brief, long streaks of light look toward the Northeast, near the constellation Hercules. Its the one near that Backwards Question Mark, which is the head of the lion that makes the Horoscope Sign of Leo.

Leo may have been the original model for the incredibly ancient Sphinx lion sculpture on the Gizeh Plateau outside Cairo in Northeast Africa, also known as KMT or Kemet/Khamit, and what their students the Greeks called "Egypt." That's a whole separate Star Hustler story, with photos of the strange erosion which some maintain were caused by water. Except this area has been a desert for thousands of years. Except for a period after the last Ice Age ended in Europe....

As usual go out after Midnight, when the Sun is on the other side of the planet. Some of the streaks are quite faint and the darker the better. The frequency of these meteors are also better seen just before dawn, more agreeable for early risers.

It'll be over the next few days, with several of the fast bright streaks a minute in the first such display of the year. The nighttime extravaganzas are actually frequent occurrences in the calendar year. I was surprised how many there were when I looked them up at http://stardate.org. The Space Science Tech portion of the website at cnn.com/ also has links to astronomical sites.

COSMIC SLOP; HUGGED UP WITH 'ORIGINAL CYN'

Everybody's favourite Meteor Shower are the Leonids in August, when its summertime and people can be out late and in comfort, not bundled up with blankets like one of the Original Cyns and I did, all hugged and cuddled up on the hood of the car to keep warm, to the sounds of the ticking engine as it cooled while we watched the celestial streaks over Lake Michigan.

Meteors in the night sky are largely the result of cosmic debris from cometary fly-bys, and the Earth runs into them. If they make it all the way down, then they are termed MeteorITES.

The sizes are usually the size of grains of sand, but the fierce ionization from the planet slamming into them at 25 miles a second causes the streaks that can be seen all the way down to the planet's surface from the wisps of the upper atmosphere at more than 80,000 feet up.

The Military even has a special cream they use to remove the pitting on high altitude jets' canopies get from hitting the meteoric dust way up there. Its a lot different than bugs hitting the car windshield!

"THEY" don't talk about it hardly at all, but there are rumours that some military aircraft -- maybe even civilian jetliners -- have been struck and possibly downed from meteoric impact. Military airspace is much higher than civilian airplanes, from about 50,000 to 75,000 feet.

Fireballs, or Bolides are meteors from large rocks, about fist sized that are capable of making audible sounds, even sonic booms as they head downward. A whole stadium full of people saw this in the Southwest a few years ago. They're quite a sight, and its on my list.

I saw a "skipper" meteor once with the boys during the annual Father-Son Camp TJ Peace the first weekend after Labour Day in Blackhawk park in Southeast Wisconsin near the Mississippi River. It went in and out of the atmosphere, leaving a dotted line. It was one of the few we saw, and it was amazing.

In Oklahoma outside on the plains of Guthrie during the Leonids a few years ago we saw one that left a sparkle like fireworks. I've heard that if its quiet in the countryside you can hear the explosions all the way down during a Meteor Storm, where there are hundreds, sometimes even thousands of meteorites per hour. It looks like driving through a snow shower with the bright lights on.

STARRY NIGHTS IN OAHU

You may have noticed that there are a lot more stars and constellations to the south part of the sky. This is so, and even at the Southern hemisphere which has different constellations that so amazed the European sailors.

I'll never forget one quiet pleasant night on the beach on the capital island of Oahu, Hawaii when I had trouble locating the Big Dipper star. Being in Wisconsin I was expecting it to be at its usual 50 or so degrees high, whirling around in its usual non-setting, Circumpolar orbit. I'd forgotten how to use it to tell time. ¿But where was it?

I couldn't see it anywhere, and the Great Bear is one of the largest constellations. Then I looked farther south. Way further, and there it was. I realized then just how far and closer to the Equator we were than my Upper Plains Great Lakes state of Wisconsin, which is uncomfortably close to the Arctic Circle, a fact we rue every winter time!

BLACK ASTRONOMICAL HISTORICAL CONNECTION; NEW CONSTELLATIONS FOR OUR TIMES: UHURU, BIRD OF PREY

The Big Dipper isn't a real constellation, although it was long known in Africa as "the Dipping Gourd." Its designated an Asterism, or star grouping like the Summer Triangle, and are often parts of real constellations.

During Slavery Times, Runaways were told to follow it's "cup" to the North. The two end stars, if a line is drawn up from them points to Polaris. This is why the first Black newspaper was called The "North Star."

I once came up with a bunch of new constellations for Our Times named after Star Trek. (The Orion constellation and the stars off to either side made me come up with the "Bird of Prey," plunging Earthward. Another called Andromeda after an African princess I renamed for the African Lt. Uhuru of the Enterprise. And so forth.

The New Star Hustler says to get yourself outside and observe the sky show that happens most nights. Besides, the price is right -- its all free! --kjw

Visit stardate.org or cnn.com/ and get yourself smart too. They have charts and maps you can print out for other coming up Meteor Showers and Storms.