Moan and Groan Thread - No Perseids - Why?

[yeti monster]

I only saw a few each night, maily due to cloud. Of those I did see, most were nice bright Earth grazers and one was probably the best meteor that I have ever seen, rising a few degrees off vertical, from about 15 degrees above the horizon to about 25 degrees through Casseopeia, like an enormous bonfire rocket. Had I been a few hundred miles further NNE, it would, most likely, have been directly overhead and I can only imagine how bright, considering the murky air I saw it through.

[Marine Bio]

Wow, reading these reports makes me feel very lucky. On Saturday night at around half midnight we had only a few hazy patches but mostly clear skies. Me and my girlfriend went out to the middle of the next door field with camp beds and blankets, laid down and stared up for nearly an hour and a half. We must have easily seen 50-60 meteors in that time. They appeared to show every couple of minutes and it felt like quite a good show. Three or four out of that were really bright and impressive. I now feel very lucky. Sorry to everyone who took our share of cloud!

[Gary23]

Over the last few nights all I saw was one very bright one. Unfortunately, despite the Met Office forecast saying otherwise, it was a mixture of cloud and poor visibility for me.

It always seems that when there is an event, such as a meteor shower that clouds just magically appear, even if it's been reasonably clear for the previous few nights.

I think early December is the next shower, although I don't know how reliable they are.

[fredster]

I have to say if nothing else the Persied meteor shower is consistent and dependable. Just a shame that's consistently and dependably rubbish, regardless of conditions, location, moon etc.

On Friday night from the garden we saw 3 in 90 minutes. On Saturday from a dark site but with a poorer sky, we saw 5 in an hour. And only one over the two nights could be considered worthwhile. Takes some explaining when you have convinced 3 non-astro bods to tag along because it will be great......opps

The Geminids are normally dependable for the right reasons.

[Stu]

Light pollution and or the moon make a big difference to how many you see as the less bright ones are lost against the background brightness.

I also remember reading some time ago that the number seen very much depends on the earth's path through the comet trails. Comets which have orbitted multiple times leave trails in slightly different orbits each time. Exactly where and when the Earth his these trails defines how intense the shower is. I believe they have modelled the debris paths so can more accurately predict the intensity.

There's some comment on this but referring to the Draconids in the link below

http://britastro.org/baa/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=732:draconid-meteor-project-2011&catid=60&Itemid=118

Cheers

Stu

[cantab]

I think the time may have come to stop referring to these events as 'showers'. If there is one thing that they aren't it is a shower.

It is my experience over the years that these events are getting less and less shower-like, is the cometary debris becoming less I wonder, or has the Earth;s orbit taken it away from the path of maximum density?

I blame the LP, washing out the fainter meteors. I watched for about 45 minutes early Sunday morning, it was clouds and gaps and I saw four meteors in that time. One very bright (brighter than any star), a couple sort of 1st-2nd mag range, and one faint. This is comparable to my previous meteor-watching efforts, though at least it's not freeing winter weather this time. And one huge bright object that I thought was a meteor for a moment before realising it was a bird. Rounded off the night with my first sight of Jupiter in a long time

[Sabri Zain]

It was cloudy skies here in Cambridge but after about six hours hours of observing, I did manage to spot about half a dozen faint streaks in the gaps between the clouds and one which was quite splendid streaking across the northwest horizon. Couldn't get a thing on time lapse photography unfortunately. I promised my six year old that he could stay up with me to watch and, thanks to the cloudy skies, he fell asleep before he could see a single 'shooting star'. He was quite inconsolable when he woke up in our tent in the back garden the next morning, and the only thing that stopped the bawling was when I told him that he didn't really miss anything as there was announcement in the news this morning that last night's meteor shower had been cancelled due to cloudy weather!

[Rob]

I agree with the whole 'Meteor Shower' thing!.. its not. It should be called a meteor event!

Rob

[David Smith]

I think the problem is there are a lot of variables involved in determining what you see with these showers. I spent 5 hours under fairly poor skies Saturday night and saw only 20+ including some sporadics. That's one of the lowest counts I have ever recorded for this shower. In my experience this shower builds quite slowly but once the peak arrives things get going quite nicely (I have seen 40 in an hour, at times coming faster than I can record) but you have to get a perfect storm of circumstances:-

- No cloud (big ask already)

- No Moon

- Away from light pollution

- Peak happens in the hours between midnight and an hour or two before morning twilight

- Where you look and how much of the sky you can see

- How good your eyesight is

This year from where I am I had none of the first 4 above and hence expected lower counts.

In January the Quadrantids played out nicely and I saw just over a hundred in the same time frame. If you are expecting the sky to be lit up with lots of them at the same time then your bound to be dissappointed.

PS. In my experience the Perseids are always worth a look even as late as the 15th as I have seen what I would call reasonable rates on the 15th / 16th before now.

[sologuitarist61]

Interesting replies to this post. Seeing as most of us are seasoned observers who recognise whether the site has LP or not, it seems strange that there is such a disparity in the numbers seen - just luck of the draw I guess.

[Sabri Zain]

Tried again last night and managed to see three times as many as I did on Saturday, under probably worse cloudy conditions. Maybe the boffins got the peak time calculations a tad wrong ....

[sologuitarist61]

Their date calculations would be for the Earth to pass through what is thought to be the central part of the debris trail, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the densest part which may well be off centre.

[Charon]

I saw about a dozen the other night, this was over a three hour period mind.