(meteorobs) Perseid peak night observation August 11/12, ATAJU

[Jure Atanackov]

HiGH!

This is my report for the peak night. Conditions were fair: no clouds, but high
humidity. Limiting magnitude suffered, especially during the second part of the
night. I began the night as usual, outside my sleeping bag - I usually crawl
into the bag during the second part of the night. Big mistake. Half an hour into
the observation I was wet and cold. Even after I'd crawled into the bag, rated
-10 degrees C I was just barely warm. I am therefore still waiting for a Perseid
peak in warm weather and a clear sky. If it's clear it's usually bitterly cold.

Anyway, I began my observation at 19:52UT with the sky at LM 6.7, facing
southeast. Perseid activity was noticeable from the first minute on. Some have
argued, that the activity wasn't impressive or even almost invisible. I
disagree, to me it was quite apparent that unusually strong activity was present
- any time you get 2 PER/min with the radiant at about 27 degrees elevation it
does get your attention. Perseids were abundant, there were several groups of
Perseids just several seconds apart. They were mostly faint, between +3. and +5.
magnitude. Some may speculate that I might be biased by the predictions, but to
tell you the truth (sorry Esko, Jeremy), I expected absolutely nothing out of
ordinary. Therefore, IMHO, the enhancement in activity was obvious as was
obvious the Perseids were fainter than normal. 

Activity dropped of after about 21:30UT, down to about 1 PER/min. At 00:45 fog
began forming around us. I was facing towards Andromeda when I suddenly realised
Aries had been erased from the sky! Looking around I found out almost half the
sky was missing. Time for a break. Fog disappeared after about two minutes and
then my tape recorder began jamming. It turned out the tape was causing the
trouble, so I ran back to get another tape and also grabbed a drink.

I resumed observations at 23:00UT. The sky appeared clearer, but LM didn't
support this (6.5). Nevertheless, activity was high. I saw 109 Perseids in a
little over an hour. They also appeared to be a little brighter, but not as
bright as in the previous years. The brightest meteor of the period was a -2m
Perseid. Similar rates persisted for the following hour with 101 Perseids seen.

The final hour and a half before dawn was very active. There were some instances
of several Perseids crammed into a space of only a couple of seconds. Perhaps
the most spectacular was a -3m Perseid fireball at 01:29UT in Aquarius shortly
followed no less than 3 Perseids between 0. and 3. magnitude shot through the
same constellation and Capricornus in 3 seconds. This succession definitely
looked like the Leonids of 2001 as I saw them from Arizona. There were several
bright meteors during the last period: the already mentioned fireball, a -2m
Perseid at 01:51:03 with a 7 second train, a -3m Perseid fireball at 01:53:32
with a 23 second train, a -2m Perseid at 4:00 and a -3m Perseid fireball at
04:20UT. There was also a -5m Perseid fireball low in the southeast that I
missed as it passed behind the nearby church. In the last period I saw 153
Perseids, the best hourly count was between 00:45 and 01:45UT with 126 Perseids.
After the end of official observations we observed casually for over half an
hour and saw several more fireballs as well as many bright Perseids. The best
was a -4m Perseid with a 20 second C shaped train at 02:48:50UT.

Overall I get the impression that there were many faint meteors during my two
nights of observations, more than I'd expected. Also, there was less activity
from the Kappa Cygnids than in the previous years. There are several more
impressions from the camp I'd like to share with you, so I'll stitch them
together in another post. Below is the summary. I also have the data broken down
in much shorter periods that Javor has forwarded to IMO. If anyone is interested
in the data, contact Javor or 

me.

METEOR SUMMARY
Date: August 11/12, 2004
Observer: Jure Atanackov (ATAJU)
Location: Trije Kralji na Pohorju, Slovenia
Lat: 46°26'17"N  Long: 15°27'30"E  Elev: 1190m
Start: 19:52UT	End: 02:25UT

Period UT	F	teff	LM	PER	AQU	CAP	KCG	Spor
19:52-20:58	1.00	1.09	6.83	103	1	0	1	13
20:58-21:58	1.00	0.99	6.76	70	0	1	1	11
21:58-22:45	1.00	0.78	6.75	32	1	0	0	7
23:00-00:05	1.00	1.08	6.52	109	7	2	1	13
00:05-01:08	1.00	1.05	6.44	101	0	1	0	21
01:08-02:25	1.00	1.28	6.32	153	0	1	0	18

Magnitude distribution:
PER: -3(3) -2(9) -1(15)  0(50) +1(53) +2(140) +3(158) +4(85) +5(50) +6(5)
KCG: +3(1) +4(2)
CAP: +1(1) +2(1) +3(2) +4(1)
AQU:  0(1) +1(1) +3(4) +4(1) +5(2)
Spor: -1(1)  0(2) +1(2) +2(9) +3(31) +4(28) +5(8) +6(2)

Clear skies!
Jure A.

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