(meteorobs) perseids and the full moon

[dfischer at astro.uni-bonn.de]

> If you have transparent skies with little light pollution, you'll be
> able to see lots of Perseids. Standing in the shadow of a mountain or
> rock formation will greatly increase the number of visible meteors.

But it's no fun - and tiring to the eyes - to stare at the bright blue sky
a full moon creates. In 2003 the Perseids coincided exactly with full
moon, and I had - otherwise - perfect conditions in Turkey. Yet the
moonlit sky was so unpleasant to monitor visually that I soon quit and
rather had a video camera do the work. Which saw 42 meteors in one hour,
quite a lot for an unintensified system. The rate I had seen visually was
much lower. (IMO never calculated a ZHR for that year AFAIK, so the nice
video data were useless for cross-calibration purposes in the end.)

Then the 2000 Leonids peak was also strongly moonlit - and IMO analysts
discovered that those who had clear skies and thus stared continuously had
a significantly lower meteor perception that those who only encountered a
hole in the clouds now and then. The lesson thus would be to hope for
clouds (just kidding) or to rest your eyes frequently.

Dan