Perseids coming soon

[Tom Rankin]

As long as we're all staying up late looking for aurorae, the Perseid Meteor Shower will be at its best on the night of August 12, into the morning of the 13th. A few days on either side will still give you some decent viewing. The Moon will not interfere at all.

The only drawback is that you need to be up from 1-5 AM for this shower. Look towards the NE, but expect them heading anywhere in the sky. You could expect to see about 1 meteor per minute if this is an average shower.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Thanks for posting. I am about to witness the Perseids in Wyoming for the first time since 1997, when a forced bivi in the Winds kept me awake shivering all night long. This time, however, I will be comfortably holed up at a motel room in Laramie for a climate conference, but on the outskirts of town, so the viewing should be superb.

 

[chinooktrail]

I wont even have to set the alarm since I've been waking up around 1am and can't fall back to sleep until minutes before the alarm goes off at 4:30!

Or maybe we will just camp in the backyard...

 

[Tom Rankin]

Bump!

As Rod Stewart would have said:

"Tonight's the Night!"

Looks pretty rainy here tonight

 

[chinooktrail]

I happened to be outside last night with Geneva around 2:30 and watched for a bit, but didn't see any...

 

[Trudy]

Viewing conditions have not been good the last two nights. Very overcast. Got up this morning at 3 to check for visibility and could only see three stars.

 

[DougPaul]

Wednesday and Thursday nights were too cloudy, so no luck.

Friday night was nice and clear, so I went out in my back yard. (It is reasonably dark with a good skyview to the NE, N, NW.) After just a few minutes, I saw a very nice bright meteor that spanned 30-40 degrees of the sky.

So I got my camera and took pictures over the next two hours (~12am--2am)--the shutter was open for a total of 52 minutes. While I thought I saw one or two meteors within the camera field of view, there was nothing on the pics. But I did get lots of wide-angle shots of stars and one airplane...

FWIW, how to take pics of meteor showers: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/meteor.shtml

Doug

 

[Tom Rankin]

We saw 20 in 40 minutes, Saturday morning around 1 AM. Not bad for the night after the peak.