15th August 2010

Last night of the Perseid Meteor Hunt.

This was actually my first late shift back after 2 weeks off work, and I finished

work at 23:15, drove home and collected my camera equipment, checked with

The Francinian sky boy (Ged) to make sure he was still going up to the Dark Sky

observation site.

Quickly realised I needed petrol and off to the 24hr garage, topped up the tank

and got a few supplies, set off for Birkrigg Common and at the traffic lights I

saw Ged waiting patiently and off we went in convoy.

Arrived at the Obs site about Midnight and I quickly set up my camera tripods and

set the cameras off on there cycle of 10 shots, continuous running. (well

continuous until the batteries run out)

while I was setting up my side, Ged was setting up the 150mm,EQ2 Skywatcher scope,

it's never the best time to set up in near perfect darkness, and after a few

little glitches the scope was set up and pointing in the direction of Jupiter.

This was the scopes first light on the planet and WOW! Really nice view of

Jupiter and it's 4 moons, cloud belt could clearly be seen and we spent a good

part of the night just observing the planet. It was so bright! it really was a beacon in

the night sky.

I also had a pair of 7x50 binoculars and was busy scanning the Milky Way, which

was stunning from dark sky observing site.

But as we were there for the last of the Perseid's, we set about watching the sky,

although there were not as frequent as the night of the 12/13th, (Max), we

actually saw 10 between us from (00:15 - 02:00). unfortunately I did not catch any

that night on camera, it always seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction, and

the meteors by this time were high up and coming in either North,East or North,

West direction with the odd Fireball directly overhead.

It was certainly a good 2 hours and we really must get an imaging night sorted out

because it's much more fun and interesting when you have some company stuck in the

middle of nowhere at Midnight.

Ray