I was surprised to see clear skies after the rain came through last night, so I took a chance and made the drive out to FLO from Orleans. I arrived around 10:15 and stayed until just before dawn, around 4:15 or so.? I split my time between observing with the 18" Starmaster and simply enjoying the view naked-eye.? I was happy to find the Persieds still relatively active.? By midnight I counted seeing at least 6 in between eyepiece time and up to around 25-ish by the time the night was done.? Quite a few around the radiant, but the best ones seemed to be to the west or east, longer, brighter and more colourful for sure.? Of course, I had my camera pointed towards the radiant so I missed them.? But I did manage to get? 4 or 5 frames with average looking Persieds in them.? One with a very bright one, but of course it was right in the corner of the frame and mostly cut off (it would have been spectacular if it was fully visible).
I think this may be the first full night of decent meteor watching I've had since November 18, 2001, when I joined many fellow OAFs at Mike's Equuleus observatory in Perth to watch the Leonid meteor storm.? Reviewing my observing notes for that session, I had estimated about 1000 meteors over the night.? Fellow Oafs in attendance were: Roland Prevost, Janice Tokkar, Bruce McGlashin, Frank Baryl (RIP), Attilla Danko and Gary Boyle.? I assume Pizzle was there too, since it was his property.? Funny how 20 years have passed but that was the first memory that came back to me upon seeing the first bright Persied last night!
Maybe we can have a reunion observing session one of these days!!
Matt
