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(meteorobs) Perseids from Paradise
A couple of German amateur astronomers have successfully observed
the Perseids of 2002 during the night of the expected peak.
We were located on Meganissi, a small Greek island in the Ionian
Sea at 38 degrees North. After some - at this time of year most
unusual - rain in the night before, the skies were near-perfect
on August 12/13, with a limiting magnitude near 6.0 and a
Milky Way full of detail.
The quarter-hour rates seen by three of us, H. Wiechell, D. Fischer
and S. Huettemeister, were always rather similar, and so I have
calculated - with somewhat simplified formulae - a combined
quasi-ZHR profile for all three, that takes into account the
radiant altitude but not the limiting magnitude which was
constant anyway.
We started observing at 20:45 UTC, about one hour after the
radiant rose. Already then the ZHR was surprisingly high,
given that the peak was expected at 22:30 UTC, with a value of
roughly 150 and a number of excellent earthgrazers.
The quasi-ZHR dropped quickly to about 80 by 21:30 UTC, though,
and at around 22:15 it settled at roughly 55, staying at that
level quite constantly until we wrapped up at 0:30 UTC on
August 13 - it was 3:30 Greek Time after all, and by now it
was clear that there wouldn't be another peak.
As a group observing experience that was a lot of fun, esp.
when one observer, while fighting a mosquito, fell off the
chair... Even with our limited database - all the raw numbers
will be sent to the proper authorities later - we feel that
we can state that the peak of the Perseids 2002 came early
by at least 1.5 hours. Experts, please explain! :-^
Daniel Fischer, signinig off from wonderful sunny Greece
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