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(meteorobs) Observations August 12/13 from Oregon
I had some family obligations that kept me from beginning my Perseid observations until 11pm (local, PDT, UT-7) Tuesday night. I don't think I missed much. I initially planned to observe from 11pm-12:30am and then again from 3:30am-4:30am, with a bit of sleep in between.
11pm-12am: Hey, the sky wasn't really that bad. As I started to dark-adapt, I caught a magnitude 5.9 star in Ursa Minor. Limiting magnitude was 6.0 when I started counting. There was actually nice structure to the Milky Way from Aquila to Cassiopeia. Meteors were slow in coming, as I waited 9 minutes for my first one. The first hour produced only 12 Perseids and two sporadics, but had the most colorful meteors. Two of the Perseids were bluish and another was violet. The brightest were two magnitude 0 Perseids. Most of the Perseids had trains.
12am-1am: I decided to stretch the count out for another full hour. Activity was pretty decent at first, including a beautiful yellow magnitude -3 Perseid with a 7-second train at 12:14. Unfortunately, the last 20 minutes of the hour were miserable with just one Perseid and one sporadic. There was actually an 18-minute period without a Perseid. Ouch! Overall, the hour yielded 18 Perseids and 4 sporadics.
3:05 am: I woke up, shut off my alarm, and my body vetoed my attempt to get up and go out. 4:05 am: I woke up and realized what happened. I knew I couldn't get in a full hour before bright morning twilight, but I decided to go out anyway for 20 minutes or so to see what was up. I eschewed time-consuming tasks such as putting down a sleeping bag and observed from a deck chair.
4:14-5:00 am: The sky was still decent, 5.8-6.0. The radiant was high in the sky. The Perseids seemed sharper, with fewer trains. Rates improved somewhat. I stretched this observation to 45 minutes until the sky really started to brighten. I caught 22 Perseids and 4 sporadics.
Overall, rates were about half what I expected. In any case, next year will be better because the Moon will be a less-intrusive waning crescent and the traditional maximum will probably occur during our morning hours (of August 12, leap year).
Observer: Wesley Stone (STOWE)
Location: Chiloquin, OR (42d 35m N, 121d 52m W)
Method: Counting: Watch/Tape recorder
Date: 2003 August 12/13 UT
Interval Teff(h) LM PER Spo*
0600-0700 1.00 6.0 12 2
0700-0801 1.00 5.9 18 4
0801-1114 Break
1114-1200 0.75 5.8 22 4
*All non-Perseids noted as sporadics
Magnitude Distributions
0600-0801
Mag. -3 ... 0 1 2 3 4 Total (mean)
--
PER 1 3 4 9 11 2 30 (2.0)
Spo - - 1 1 3 1 6 (2.7)
1114-1200
Mag. 0 1 2 3 4 Total (mean)
--
PER 1 5 4 9 3 22 (2.4)
Spo - 1 - 2 1 4 (2.8)
-----------------------------------------
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