(meteorobs) Perseid max 2006 Florida

[Norman W. McLeod III]

So far it looks like I did as well as anybody else, with one exception, for 
a portion of Perseid max.  I went out front on the driveway and faced NE 
for half an hour, 505 - 535 AM EDT  (905 - 935 UT) Aug 12 and counted 7 
Perseids plus 1 sporadic.  The best was a yellow  -4m Perseid with 
10-second train.  The faintest was a  +3m.  Limiting magnitude was 4.5 with 
the moon to the rear.

Two hours earlier we finished walking our dogs, and I saw 2 Perseids just 
before going inside.  Joan saw the second one, an intense orange  -2m 
Perseid with train 4 seconds.  We came back out with chairs and gave it 15 
extra minutes but saw nothing else.

This was my 3rd clear Perseid max in a row here.  But July hasn't been 
clear since 1995.  We had a heavy batch of dust from the Sahara passing 
through during the Delta Aquarid period.  The worst nights had a magnitude 
limit of 2 from town.  Sunrises and sunsets were white for a week with the 
day sky mostly white as well.

I expect to locate a new observing site further out than I have been 
going.  Urbanizing is going gangbusters around here and the former sites 
sound lost.  Will do an exploration trip out soon just to see what 
development has come in the past year and a half.

Routine observing is a thing of the past.  Poorer weather combined with 
harder and more expensive travel makes only the best events worthwhile.  I 
have to wonder how younger people can get interested in astronomy these 
days with the night sky just about gone.  The entire basis of my interest 
stemmed from being able to see things at night.  We had a good sky over 
Miami until 1961, just long enough to get a solid interest going.  By 1969 
it was wiped out.  The same process has happened on the lower Florida west 
coast during the last 10 years.  One has to be brought up far from cities 
to get into astronomy now.  Travelling in June late evening in Oklahoma 
near the Kansas border showed some black sky but there wasn't time for 
observing.


Norman


Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society

Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod at peganet.com