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(meteorobs) Perseid surge early morning August 11/12 ?



Hi all,

Just a quick note that I want to report success with Perseids 
observations on the first peak night of August 11/12.  Enjoyed crisp 
clear skies just west of Ottawa, and I was able to record the 
activity under dark magnitude 6.5 -6.6 skies.  The dry weather could 
hold, and we may possibly have another clear night here for August 
12/13...


First impressions of August 11/12:

- The Perseids appeared weak and below average until 2:00 EDT (6:00 UT)

- Sudden strong showing of Perseids between 3:00 EDT (7:00 UT) and 
4:30 EDT (8:30 UT)!!  I don't yet have the numbers but the rates 
definitely seemed to reach around the one-per-minute range.

- LOTS (majority) of Perseids appeared very faint (mag +4 to +5 range)

- I saw two nearly perfect "point" meteors (meteors directly on the 
radiant coming "head-on"). One of them was a vivid magnitude 0 with a 
path of less than 0.5 degrees!!  It didn't even show any motion, only 
a flash followed by a glowing train.

- Right before dawn, a spectacular Perseid fireball of magnitude -5 
or -6.  It produced a very vivid-blue terminal flash and left behind 
a glowing persistent train for 12 seconds!  It was very impressive.

- The number of meteors appearing nearly simultaneuously was a really 
striking effect.  Then it usually takes a few minutes before more 
activity appeared.

- Even in brightening morning twilight, after 4:30am, I still saw an 
occasional Perseid flash through the sky.



The full report will be ready soon,

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



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