(meteorobs) [Astro] Perseid peak in Alberta

[Greg Scratchley [gmail]]

Though nothing was published at Spaceweather this time around, here are the
few images (annotated) that we got over the evening.

http://spaceweather.com/submissions/large_image_popup.php?image_name=Greg-Scratchley-2011-08-13-PersiedHOAnnotat_1313273085.jpg


On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 2:50 PM, BRUCE MCCURDY <bmccurdy at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Undeterred by the bright moonlight, on early Saturday morning I headed out
> to my primary observing site at Beaver Hills Dark Sky Preserve, the parking
> lot at the Blackfoot Staging Area. Or as I called it on this night,
> "Brightfoot". This was my 24th consecutive Perseid peak - I have been out on
> the night of Aug 11/12 or 12/13 every one of those years, frequently both
> nights.
>
> As peak nights go this one was pretty forgettable, due to the glare of the
> Moon. A little high haze exacerbated that unwanted light, reducing my
> limiting magnitude to around 4.5 at best - still a couple of tenths better
> than the best of moonless city skies, but pretty poor for the "dark" site.
> It made the wait between meteors both longer and less interesting - no Milky
> Way, no Andromeda Galaxy, the faintest smudge where the Double Cluster used
> to be. I parked my chair in the shade of the camp shack at the south end of
> the lot to kill the direct moonlight and looked to the northeast - which of
> course was the direction in which the dawn later rose. My taped comments
> about conditions included remarks that the night sky seemed "sterile", and
> during one long lull between meteors that "the sky refuses to give up her
> dead".
>
> Still, I was able to view 41 Perseids in 2.25 hours Teff, for an average
> rate of about 18 per hour. 11 of these were in the negative magnitudes,
> including a pair of -4 fireballs, one of which had an impressive blue *and*
> green wake with a three-second persistent train. The average Perseid
> recorded was mag +1.1 - bright, but not surprisingly so given the
> conditions.  I also observed 11 other meteors, just two of which I was able
> to assign to another radiant, the beta Perseids. I saw no August Draconids,
> kappa Cynids or Eridanids, and was unable to properly account for the three
> southern radiants at my back so simply recorded the few south-to-north
> meteors I did see as sporadics.
>
> There were a few other observers on site including Greg (APOD) Scratchley
> and Lance (Spaceweather) Taylor who were photographing Perseids at the other
> end of the parking lot. During the few minutes that I came over for a chat
> we all saw a real nice -2 streaker in northern Auriga and Greg got a
> terrific image of it judging by the display on his camera. I hope to see a
> large scale version posted to the Astro list (hint, hint). I believe Lance
> may have captured that one as well.
>
> All in all not the greatest night, but I'm glad I went, especially given
> that for the first 1.5 hours of my session I was the only active observer to
> report to IMO, at least so far. Happens occasionally, but not often on a
> Perseid peak night!
>
> (My session summary can be found here:
> http://vmo.imo.net/imozhr/obsview/view.php?id=9152 )
>
> The following evening I went to a location just outside the edge of town
> and observed for about 45 minutes around midnight, and saw next to nothing -
> three total meteors including just one Perseid. Limiting magnitude was not
> even 4th magnitude so there is no value in filing a formal report, other
> than to say with some confidence that there was no post-peak outburst a la
> 2009.
>
> Bruce
> MCCBR
> *****
>
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