The highest Perseid rates (max Aug 11/12) based on radiant altitude should
come along latitude 45N.  But losses from quite a ways further south are
marginal. Even at 25N the Perseid pre-dawn rate would still be 92% of the
optimum.  Going further down the loss increases more rapidly.  So it is up
to the weather to decide the best site.

Arizona is more chancy in August than at any other time of the year.
Monsoon season brings clouds and showers northward, and this can affect much
of the Southwest and mountain regions.  The upper Midwest and New England
could be very good, if a cleansing cold front has just passed.  The high
plains seem good on average, as well as much of California.  Everywhere else
is anybody's guess.  Most of the eastern half has perpetual summer haze, now
including Florida.

Up to 1976 the Florida Keys area was definitely one of the best sites for
Perseids.  The weather was consistently clear for years at the right time,
combined with semi-developed remoteness insuring superb skies.  I went down
there every year from 1963 to 1981, excluding 1970.  After 3 years in a row
with bad weather, I gave it up.  Now I just try to catch the Perseids
locally, not much further north.

For a few years the best meteor site anywhere had to be the old Bahia Honda
Bridge in the Keys.  Located 15 miles west of Marathon, the old bridge was
still accessible after a new one was built.  It rose to 50 feet above the
water, with a hump in the middle to 65 feet.  Observing on the bridge was
mosquite-free most of the time, with balmy night breezes and black sky,
routinely magnitude limit 7.3 - 7.5.  By about 1980 the end spans were
removed, tons of rock and debris had been dumped on the western approach,
and Big Pine Key just west developed so much the sky was ruined.  The
once-deserted highway at night also became busy all the time.

Someone last year asked about observing from the south end of Seven-Mile
Bridge.  I suppose it would do in a pinch, but in the past I found it to be
too close to Marathon.

Norman

Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society

Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod@peganet.com

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