Perseids Anyone?

[trynda1701]

I know it's a day late posting this, but here's my observing report.

Wednesday 12th, 22:45BST to Thursday 13th, 01:15BST.

After a two and a half hours observing session, from my bedroom window only (I've got a bad chesty cough which isn't helping my asthma, and I was not going out into the night air with that), I managed to see 10 meteors, including one in my little Heritage 130P Newtonian telescope, and one in 10x50 binoculars!

I had started trying to spot the Lagoon and Triffid nebulae, first with my 10x50s and then the Heritage 130P at x26. I've never managed to see these two objects, light summer nights or just bad luck with weather (either too hazy low down, or just clouded out), meant that I never have seen these, as they are low down for me here in Scotland. I think I was getting a hint of both nebulae in the scope, but it was quite hazy that low down. I DID see the cluster M18, but not the Omega nebula to it's north. As I was scanning around, about 00:05BST, I saw a meteor flash past in the eyepiece, so I went to naked eye observation.

Considering the limited view (south westerly straight out of the window) which would be lucky to be a sixth of the sky, the ten meteors in just over an hour is quite good. I thought I was going to be clouded out by advancing cloud from the south about 00:15BST, but it passed to the west. The ten meteors sighted included three REALLY bright ones, all three passing thru southern Aquila. I would say first was about 0 magnitude, the second one maybe -1, and the last of the three about -3 or brighter? Not sure about any persistent trails, as it was slightly hazy overall, plus I was indoors. The binocular meteor sighted was when I was having a quick look at IC4665 and 70 Ophiuchi.

As the weather hasn't been kind to me on the last few Perseid showers, I'm considering this one a success!

Mark

[kev]

Well, I finally got home from working away on Thursday. Woke up last night at 3am, so wandered out onto patio with coffee and laid back.

Nice!  plenty of Persieds, and quite a few other meteors. 8-)

Have to say it was an excellent sky, milky way horizon to horizon.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I spotted 50 of them from my cabin on ship. All but 4 of them were very faint. I observed from midnight til 3am. Not a very good tally really. Weather was perfect every night for the whole cruise.