Meteor showers 09-08-2016

[mike.brightmore]

Had a hour of perfectly clear sky just after midnight here in North East Lincolnshire. Plenty of meteors (around 20) but certainly not the 'storm' some had predicted. Saw 4 very bright ones with trails. I think I would have seen a lot more from a dark sky site.

[Fermenter]

10 hours ago, Paul M said:

I'm clouded out here but I've seen my first 2016 perseid here: https://youtu.be/80Lh68kGgbc

 

Has anyone watched this and spotted some good meteors?  I would like to share this with the neighborhood FB group for folks that weren't able to get out and see any meteors.  I have spotted a few.  There are a couple short small ones, in the lower right area around 1:40:08 and then again like 15-20s later.  And a bigger brighter one on the right half of the screen around 1:41:35.

[Fermenter]

Well, the cloud cover did manage to break right around 4am.  So my fiancée and I went across the street to a park, laid down and managed to spot many meteors.  We didn't keep count, but saw a least a couple dozen, including several long-burning "Earth grazers" that left a trail of smoke.  We also spotted two satellites, I'm not sure which but I'm going to load Stellarium tomorrow and try to figure out what the second satellite we spotted was, as it lasted for quite some time and crossed most of the sky (possibly the ISS?).  We also brought my green laser pointer and I taught her how to spot Cassiopeia, how it points to Polaris, and she even spotted the Pleiades herself, at first asking if it was the little dipper (not an unreasonable assumption for someone who knows no constellations).  All told, it was a wonderful viewing session even if we did have to wait until almost dawn to get it in.

[Paul M]

5 minutes ago, Fermenter said:

Has anyone watched this and spotted some good meteors?  I would like to share this with the neighborhood FB group for folks that weren't able to get out and see any meteors.  I have spotted a few.  There are a couple short small ones, in the lower right area around 1:40:08 and then again like 15-20s later.  And a bigger brighter one on the right half of the screen around 1:41:35

I'm clouded out here but I've seen my first 2016 perseid here: https://youtu.be/80Lh68kGgbc

The horse has bolted so far as any expected "storm"  activity is concerned,  but I watched that link for a while when there was a period of clear sky. 

It did show quite a few meteors.  Nothing exciting but it's not the area of sky I'd have been watching anyway.  I've never found the radiant to be a good place to look.  A lot of short train head on meteors.  I prefer to look overhead for the good ones. 

Bizarrely while watching that there were 2 meteors appearing to go backwards.  A single sporadic  meteor heading directly towards the perseid radiant is coincidence. A second one seconds later is beyond coincidence. I think there was an issue with the feed

[bejay1957]

Most of my count was of very small/brief meteors, almost like sparks, which I assumed were very small particles?  Only had 3 big/bright/long trailers; certainly nothing like 1994 down in Wilshire, which probably was my best Perseids night and which at times reminded me of George Pal's War of the Worlds...

Forgot to mention my back garden observing also included a visiting bats (or bats?), and one low pass by a much larger flyer - probably one of the local Tawny Owls :-)

[Fermenter]

30 minutes ago, Paul M said:

The horse has bolted so far as any expected "storm"  activity is concerned,  but I watched that link for a while when there was a period of clear sky. 

It did show quite a few meteors.  Nothing exciting but it's not the area of sky I'd have been watching anyway.  I've never found the radiant to be a good place to look.  A lot of short train head on meteors.  I prefer to look overhead for the good ones. 

Bizarrely while watching that there were 2 meteors appearing to go backwards.  A single sporadic  meteor heading directly towards the perseid radiant is coincidence. A second one seconds later is beyond coincidence. I think there was an issue with the feed

Interesting.  Is it possible those were Delta Aquariids instead of Perseids?  Do you recall what time stamp they occurred?

Edit: BTW, good tip on not looking at the radiant.  We noticed the same thing, looking overhead was more fruitful, we just laid directly on our backs with our feet pointing East Northeast.  Most of the good meteors weren't anywhere near the radiant, though they were flying away from it.

[Stu]

1 hour ago, Fermenter said:

Interesting.  Is it possible those were Delta Aquariids instead of Perseids?  Do you recall what time stamp they occurred?

Edit: BTW, good tip on not looking at the radiant.  We noticed the same thing, looking overhead was more fruitful, we just laid directly on our backs with our feet pointing East Northeast.  Most of the good meteors weren't anywhere near the radiant, though they were flying away from it.

Totally agree. I've never looked towards the radiant, seems pointless. Overhead in Cygnus was a good place to gaze but they were occurring all over the sky, key is to not concentrate too hard on one spot and just relax so you catch them in your peripheral vision. Interesting to trace the path back to the radiant, I think I only saw one sporadic all evening.

[Gina]

Glad some are seeing the shower

[Pig]

I sat outside last night for a couple of hours and in between the clouds I managed to view 17 meteors, unfortunately none of which were grazers but on the whole it wasn't too bad a night