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(meteorobs) Re: FL Aug 13/14 good rates
Finally got a night essentially free of clouds for a longer time. It did
gradually cloud up again but my darkest region was all right to the end.
Perseids were surprisingly good; had one rate of 27 which equals what I saw
at max. That hour had an early freak minute with 5, and stayed good for the
duration. Bright ones are still around. I got my best trains of this epoch.
626-726 16 PER 1 KCG 2 NDA 8 SPOR LM7.3
726-826 27 PER 4 SDA 3 NDA 1 CAP 8 SPOR LM7.3
826-926 22 PER LM7.3 saw nothing else this hr; weird
926-950 7 PER 5 SPOR LM7.3 action was dying out
647 blue PER -5 train 25
911 orange PER -3 train 6
948 white-blue PER -3 tr 2
also, orange -1 tr 5, orange -1 tr 3, yellow -1 tr 1 (all PER)
All Teff is 1.00.
I faced south this time. Couldn't do it past 2 nights. Sometimes I lose .1
or .2m in sky the last hour esp if zodiacal light is blazing. No
interference from Venus in south; it does wipe the east noticeably. Jupiter
passing through Aquarius is a major annoyance for summer meteors. (It is
back where it was when I started observing meteors, Aug 1960, for the fourth
time. Completed 3 revolutions in 36 years.)
I enjoy watching parts of the sky away from brighter stars because these do
interfere with seeing fainter things, stars and meteors both. Best results
come from areas with nothing brighter than 5m! Amazing how a 4m can
slightly blind your dark vision. My favorite test double star is the wide
6m pair 3 degrees WNW of Alpha Equulei. If I can't see that, I'm in big
trouble. But I like to look along the Milky Way some. The Double Cluster
in Per is cleanly separated into two components with a good many stars
resolvable in each, all this naked eye.
Aug 13/14 in the past, before 1982, was consistently a very good night with
Per rates half or better the max rate.
Starting 1982 this night became very poor, until this year.
Norman
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