Perseid Meteor Shower August 12/13, 2009
I figured I'd use this page for all the images I took during these two days, so a lot of it is not related to the shower. I had been planning for a few weeks to do an all-nighter observing session for the perseids, especially after hearing about the possible outburst of 200 ZHR (Zenith hourly rate), which never happened when it was dark over the States unfortunately. I decided to go to my new favorite Dark sky location, it's about an hour drive from my house so I left about 45 minutes before sunset. I get there 10 minutes after sunset a thunderstorm is struggling for life just across the border, It divided the sky in half with a large shadow. It's called an anticrepuscular ray when it is opposite the sun. It was the most intense one I have ever seen, it looked unreal with the naked eye, the entire sky was divided in a solid easily seen line, one side a vast shadow, the other a beautiful orange and pink. It was a wild sight.
And back towards the sun it was easily noticeable, but not quite as intense.
That kept me occupied for a bit, but soon it faded and I waited (no rhyme intended lol). There is a good period of probably an hour and 10 minutes between sunset and total darkness, so a long time to wait to start seeing meteors. There is a car where I am and soon that guy comes down from the hill and we talk for a few moments, soon enough that little "thunderstorm" is shooting little bolts out! I think It would die before it's catchable on camera though, probably 30 minutes before it's dark enough. Nope, It puts on a little lightning show for me.
It's kind of tough to get bolts when it's light out and activity is fairly scarce. So long story short I waste an entire battery shooting this storm. Only one for the shower, sweet. I get all setup for meteors and I lay down on this pinic table and don't see any for about 5 minutes and I think, oh crap this is a bust. Just as I think this I see one, a few moments later another. Saw about 20 by the time Chris Allington and his wife showed up. Then 140 by the time they leave. This all happening between 9:30pm CDT and 1:30am. They left and I went to a different spot, just on a random road and layed out on my hood I finished the night at 217 at 3:45am when some patchy clouds came in.
Headed home and went to sleep.
The next day on spaceweather it says today might be better, so I get ready and go out again. This time I go mainly to do star trails, Although that plan didn't work out too well. During twilight and before the moon rose I was attempting to catch a fireball and surprisingly did catch a little earthgrazer. Ended the night with 56 more meteors ending the two night observing count at 273! My friend Martin Mckenna says it's the highest count he's heard for this shower, not bad! Looking forward to the leonids for sure.
Did a couple stacks of patrol fireball images, since I had nothing better to do, and as you can see in the last photo I got a little bored.
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