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(meteorobs) Re: poor Perseid perception
That describes my situation with the Perseids. I have been puzzled about
this for 30 years ---- why do I perform so poorly with the Perseids
relative to most other observers? It's not the sky; everybody can see what
I am reporting routinely. It's not the latitude either. The Perseid
radiant almost reaches the meridian at dawn from 26N-28N, almost 60 degrees
up. At 45N the radiant elevation is optimum (but not overhead); using the
ZHR formula indicates that even this far south I should still be getting 92%
of the optimum rate. The long summer nights here allow plenty of catchup
time for the rising radiant.
Paul Jones was fairly active from St. Augustine FL, at 29N, in the 70's to
early 80's. During that period he consistently had the highest US observed
Perseid rate, usually twice mine and sometimes thrice mine. But he was
fairly normal or just slightly above normal on everything else! I never
understood that. He may not be alone in this situation.
In 1994 I had a best rate of only 22 from the Perseids, but that was the
lone fully clear hour. In earlier years when I was doing better, I would
see around 35-40 for that same hour. In 1996 the final hour of the night
had the 28, well short of what I consider to be even normal for the Perseids
(40/hr top). That was the baseline I established for myself from 1964 to
1975. So far in the 90's the Perseids have been dismal for me. Only the
years 1969 ,1977-78, 1981, and 1989 were impressive. The recent excitement
about the Perseids I haven't shared in at all; it's gone into reverse instead.
George and Wes are right about the S&T reports; I neglected to consider the
quality of these in general. I have seen batches of these in the past as
the AMS was receiving them later on. Large numbers of one-time observers
tell you how many "meteors" they saw, not separated into shower vs.
sporadic. A majority of groups didn't give individual rates. Many of these
used the exact wording "being careful not to count the same meteor twice."
No more than 10% of these reports gave any useable data.
Norman