2008 Perseid Meteor Shower

[MeteorWayne]

<p>Hi Community, time for the pre-peak bump.</p><p>I observed for 2.5 hours this morning, with 24 Perseids out of 38 meteors (9.6 PER/Hr, 15.2 Meteors/Hr)</p><p>My best hourly rate was 11 Perseids (17 total meteors), under good, but not great suburban skies, for an equivilent Perseid ZHR of ~25 +/-7. This was during the last hour before twilight. The IMO ZHR for this time period was 23 +/-1, so my observations were in the ballpark.</p><p>See latest graph here: http://www.imo.net/live/perseids2008/</p><p>This morning and Wednesday morning rates might be expected to be twice that, and the peak on Mon night/Tuesday morning twice that again. So if it looks like Monday night/Tuesday morning might be clouded out, tonight and Tue night/Wed AM are good second choices. Personally, I have no chance tonight, so will bank some zzzzzz time and hope for the best tomorrow morning. You'll do better if you are away from the cities (I'm 30 miles from Newark NJ and Allentown PA), and worse if you are closer.</p><p>Remember, the best rates are in the early morning, from 1 AM to twilight.</p><p>Good luck my friends!!</p><p>Meteor Wayne</p><p>BTW, My best meteor last night was not a Perseid, but a sporadic meteor. It was magnitude -5 (brighter than venus ever gets) and left a luminous trail in the sky for 10 seconds.</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[3488]

<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'><font color="#ff0000">Posted by MeteorWayne</font></DIV></p><p><font size="2"><strong>Hi Wayne, had a nice sporadic earlier also. Walking back with my wife from her work, we had a very brillian sporadic pass from Kockab in Ursa Minor slicing through the tail of Ursa Major between Mizar & Alkaid, ending in Canes Venatici. </strong></font></p><p><font size="2"><strong>That too left a trail of about 10 seconds. This was at 21:27 UTC (as soon as I saw it, checked the time on my watch). There was still some twilight in the WNW, but the rest of the sky was quite dark, with a few clouds.</strong></font></p><p><font size="2"><strong>Andrew Brown.&nbsp;</strong></font></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[MeteorWayne]

<p>Now that the bulk of the Perseid shower is over, and I've had some time to at least do a preliminary analysis of my data I can present an ovserall view of my experience. Since the full moon is tomorrow, only a few more hours with the radiant very low are possible next week</p><p>So far I have observed on 10 nights (or more correctly, mostly mornings, since that's when rates are highest and skies are dark this time of year). In 25.14 hours of official observing time (Teff=effective observing time) I recorded 433 total meteors.<br />These consisted of<br />276 Perseids (PER)<br />111 Sporadics (SPO)<br />25 Southern Delta Aquarids (SDA)<br />8 alpha Capricornids (CAP)<br />3 kappa Cygnids (KCG)<br />and a smattering of others.</p><p>This was my best Perseid year in over a decade; usually the weather is awful and the sky is hazy.</p><p>On the peak night here in NW NJ (Aug 11-12), 139 Perseids were counted of 174 total meteors in 4.95 Hours.<br />The highest hourly meteor rate was 48, with 39 of them Perseids, after a lull, a second peak occurred with 47 meteors and 39 Perseids in an hour. The average perseid rate for the night was 28/Hr.</p><p>The peak EZHR (Equivilent Zenithal Hourly Rate) for my observations was 151 +/- 25 at 1:15 AM on the 12th.</p><p>This was rather lucky since the skies only cleared up at midnight, a heavy rain shower had hit at 10:30 PM.<br />It was one of my dewiest observing nights ever. The 10 of us at the NJAA that night were totally soaked by mornings light.</p><p>The highest Perseid hourly counts were at&nbsp; 1:51 and 4:09 AM.</p><p>All in all, a great year.</p><p>Over the last 3 years the Perseids have now moved into 1st place of the major showers with 451, followed by October's Orionids with 308. Of course, the Sporadics, visible all year lead with 876.</p><p>A tired but happy Meteor Wayne</p><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>