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Perseid meteor shower

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GeordieBoy

Wed Aug 12 2009, 08:38PM

Registered Member #1232 Joined: Wed Jan 16 2008, 10:53PM
Location: Doon tha Toon!
Posts: 881

Has anyone seen anything? ...or even better, have some photographs or video they want to show off?

Cheers,

-Richie,

klugesmith

Wed Aug 12 2009, 09:10PM

Registered Member #2099 Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716

I stepped into back yard at about 4 am (11 UT) and saw 2 meteors in 15 minutes
while the moonlit sky became more and more hazy. Quit when I could only see a few stars.
At least it wasn't a big trip!
- Rich

thedatastream

Wed Aug 12 2009, 09:28PM

Registered Member #505 Joined: Sun Nov 19 2006, 06:42PM
Location: Yorkshire!
Posts: 329

Clouds. I has them. :(

Myke

Thu Aug 13 2009, 12:45AM

Registered Member #540 Joined: Mon Feb 19 2007, 07:49PM
Location: MIT
Posts: 969

Hopefully tonight is clear tonight so I can see the meteors. (stupid fog)

EDIT: didn't see anything tonight

Nicko

Thu Aug 13 2009, 08:35AM

Registered Member #1334 Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615

Kent was a no-show. Looked NE at about 23:00 just below Cassiopeia and all we saw was light pollution from Maidstone and a bit from London. The general haze prevented any decent viewing, and caused low level reflection from nearby towns...

BBC has some viewers' photos:

Previous years have been good. Maybe next year will be too...

Steve Conner

Thu Aug 13 2009, 09:58AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

It was a completely clear night in Glasgow. I saw two! No pics though.

GeordieBoy

Thu Aug 13 2009, 11:05AM

Registered Member #1232 Joined: Wed Jan 16 2008, 10:53PM
Location: Doon tha Toon!
Posts: 881

It was slightly overcast in Newcastle for the last two nights. Could barely see any stars, let alone any shooting stars.

I did see a dramatic one back in January this year though, whilst driving back through Lincolnshire late at night. Despite being dazzled by oncoming headlights and a slightly overcast sky, it was bright and clearly visible for several seconds before breaking into pieces. Each then faded out before reaching the horizon.

It looked similar to this, but did not light up the sky anwhere near as dramatically as this footage in Canada:

The next day it was on the news about a turbine blade getting bent on a wind generator in Lincolnshire that same night. I tried to work out from my Satnav exactly where I was when I saw it, and how close to the wind farm. As far as I know there is still no explanation for what damaged the blade, so could it have been another meteor like the one I saw, but that made it to the ground!?!?!? ...or just a coincidence?

Sorry for the slightly less than reputable source for the story, but I couldn't find any of the BBC links or other papers that covered it at the time.

-Richie,

PS. Also have any of the Radio Amateurs on here managed to achieve propagation via meteor trails? I heard something about them leaving conductive ionised trails that act like momentary long wires in the upper atmosphere.

Marko

Thu Aug 13 2009, 12:17PM

Registered Member #89 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 02:40PM
Location: Zadar, Croatia
Posts: 3145

Hi guys,

I tend to walk randomly outside at night and gaze at the sky from time to time. So I did at the purported peak of the shower - but I must admit I didn't really see any significant increase in meteor count than usual, and I didn't see any specifically bright ones either.
It's usual to see 4-5 here if one gazes at the night sky with concentration for a half an hour or so...

Some were clearly much faster than others - since perseids are comet fragments they are expected to be up to 60km/s, although none of those seemed specifically bright or impressive.

Two weeks ago I saw a nice fireball that illuminated clouds, and could be seen breaking up in pieces before it faded - not closely as impressively as the Canadian video, though. That one looks like it easily released couple kilotons of TNT worth.

Contrary to popular belief, meteors are actually unlikely to completely vaporize in atmospheric entry. They rather tend to break up and lose their kinetic energy, usually resulting in lots of small fragments simply falling at terminal velocity and ending somewhere on earth, which in most cases goes unnoticed.

I don't see, though, how could one make decent meteor photographs without a decent star tracking camera mount.

Marko

Dave Marshall

Thu Aug 13 2009, 01:37PM

Registered Member #16 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:22PM
Location: New Wilmington, PA
Posts: 554

Persieds are known for being very fast and rather dim compared to other showers like the Leonids.

We had clouds move in right in the middle of the peak (08UT, or 4am local) but before that, we had a peak of about 45 in an hour. The dimmest were probably washed out by the moon, but evidence from other more sophisticated observing stations did seem to show a pretty good peak about when expected.

Last night wasn't bad either, I was still observing 10-15 an hour.

-Dave

Noelle

Thu Aug 13 2009, 10:16PM

Napoleonic Powermonger
Registered Member #2 Joined: Thu Jan 26 2006, 05:10AM
Location: Meadville, PA
Posts: 70

Last night I saw a handful. They were actually fairly bright and had long streaks.

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