I need a celestial event!
Phases of the Moon
….and other impossible things in Book6.
I had this dream last night about how to involve Sergeant Michaels in Portia’s latest case, and for it to work, I need a celestial event to occur in the summer of 1931 that is visible from London.
No prob, right?
Wikipedia has a listing on Eclipses by century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_20th_century_lunar_eclipses 1930 Apr 135:59PartialD1110.9551.1320.1127613.42-85:216:371930 Oct 0719:07PartialA116-0.9811.1170.03420.874.618:4619:281931 Apr 0220:08TotalD1210.2042.4891.5082089012.75-4.618:2419:2320:5321:521931 Sep 2619:48TotalA126-0.272.4321.325228840.180.917:5419:0620:3021:42
Southern Delta Aquarids as interpreted by http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2011/07/25/uptick-in-meteors-as-summer-ripens/
How about the Delta Aquarid meteor shower instead?
The Southern Delta Aquariids are a meteor shower visible from mid July to mid August each year with peak activity on July 28 or 29 July. The shower originated from the breakup of what are now the Marsden and Kracht Sungrazing comets.
The meteor shower was first recorded by G. L. Tupman in 1870, and was further studied well into 1933. A journalist and astronomer named Ronald A. McIntosh studied the meteor shower in the 1920s, and I think I can therefore extrapolate that Portia Adams, an avid reader, might have come across his articles on the phenomenon.
The viewer/victim would have to be ‘facing South East’ to see the shower (according to this article I found on SpaceDex.com) and would have to be watching before dawn on the 28 or 29th of July.
additional info on lighting
Prompted by the comments below, I’m doing some research today on light pollution and whether it would be possible to see a meteor shower from downtown London in 1931. Here is some helpful data from UK Roads: “The gradual spread of street lighting across the UK led to the first set of national standards being established during 1927. Due to efficiency and economic constraints, the standards required lighting accompanied by reflectors which would direct all light into a narrow channel in the roadway. This resulted in no uniform illumination of the roadway, causing pavements and large parts of the carriageway to remain unlit. And a large amount of glare where the road was lit!”
#Celestial #mystery #history #lunareclipse #portiaadams #historical #adventure