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(meteorobs) Re: Perseid observations August 11/12 - narrative

Jure,

Thanks for the extensive report. I'm sure everyone enjoyed it!

I was also relieved to know that I was not the only one on earth seeing
orange meteors that night!

Your conditions sounded brutal! It reminded me of the conditions in
Spain for the 99 Leonids. Believe it or not I have experienced frost
during the Perseids from "balmy" southern California. It was certainly
not the case this year as the temperature was a perfect 21 C (69 F) to
start and 19 C (67 F) and the end of the session. Now if we could only
experience those conditions during the upcoming Leonids!

Clear Skies!

Bob Lunsford



peter.atanackov@guest.arnesdot si wrote:
> 
> After a front passage during the day, the sky cleared nicely towards the
> evening and when we got to our obseving location, the sky was already
> crystal clear. After checking in at the mountain cottage we proceeded to
> Jezerski vrh, which is some 700m away from the cottage. As usually, it was
> bitterly cold and the wind was blowing like a hurricane. We also had
> problems with orographic clouds forming on top of the hill, but they were
> gone by midnight.
>         I started at 20:01UT, and only after 5 minutes I saw my first
> fireball: a 40 degrees long -4m yellow Perseid with a 4 second train. LM
> was very good at 6.8. At 20:58 a -4m orange Perseid fireball with train 2
> seconds exploded in UMa. Then at 21:03:11 a -2m orange Kappa Cygnid glided
> down Pegasus. I was still babbling excitedly onto my tape when at 21:03:37
> a green -5m Kappa Cygnid exploded in Pisces. I nearly had a heart attack!
>         We had to make a break at 21:23 for some 32 minutes due to clouds,
> just enough time to grab a bite and then proceede with observations.
> During the second hour we saw LM drop quite dramatically as the last
> quarter moon slowly rose. Mean LM this hour was 6.5. The best Perseid of
> the hour was a -2m orange meteor at 22:29. Perseid rate increased to 32/h.
>         The third hour saw the moon rising still higher and LM drop
> further. Mean LM was 6.2 (thanks to the extremely transparent sky this
> night). Seven minutes into the period at 23:07:45 a -2m orange Perseid
> appeared. At 23:22 a white -3m Perseid glided down Capricornus, leaving a
> 4 second train. Javor may have caught this one with his camera. Then, one
> minute before the end of the period at 23:59 a -3m Perseid exploded in
> Ursa Major, leaving a 5 second train. By the end of the period I'd seen 43
> Perseids.
>         Fourth hour started with a bang, a -4m white Perseid with train 5
> seconds at 00:06:48 UT. Only three minutes later at 00:08 a -3m Perseid
> appeared in Aquila with train 8 seconds. The next half hour passed rather
> uneventfully except the 1/min Perseid rate. Then at 00:48:56 a brilliant
> orange -6m Perseid shot down into western sky leaving a 6 second train.
> This was most definitely the highlight of the night.
>         The fifth hour started at 01:00UT, that's 03:00 local time. At
> 01:17 a -2m orange Perseid shot down Pegasus, leaving a 5 second train.
> Then, at 01:23 a -3m Perseid fireball appeared, leaving a 4 second train,
> this was also the last fireball during the regular time. The last, sixth
> period was marked by 1/min PER rate and several -1m PER. Later, going down
> the hill towards our cars a -4m PER shot past Lyra at 02:53, LM already
> having dropped to around 3.0.
> 
>         All in all, this was a great night! The rate during the last three
> periods was around 1/m with many bright Perseids. This was definitely a
> bright display, much brighter than last year's. There were also several
> instances of dead on simultaneous meteors: 01:07 +3.5m and +1.5m PER,
> 02:08 +1m and +4m PER. Finally I need to make a remark about the weather
> conditions this night: temperatures around zero, winds blowing 50-60 km/h.
> I was dressed like a polar bear. This night the most common joke heard at
> Jezerski vrh was taken out of the usual Perseid shower description: 'The
> Perseid shower is favoured by warm august summer nights...'
> 
> Clear skies!
> 
> Jure A.
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