Pre-Perseids Observing Session - we're in for a treat!

Last night, Tuesday August 11th, I spent a little over 2 hours of my time til 01:15hrs (August 12th) watching for Perseids from my home in Blueball, 9km south of Tullamore. I thought that I would get to see SOME, as it is so close to the actual peak, and I had exceptionally clear skies with no cloud cover apart from along the eastern horizon.

Well, I was in awe! An actual meteor count, not specific to real Perseids, I was clocking an average of 12 a minute before midnight. I observed some that seem to radiate from an area between Cygnus and Pegasus in all directions, as well as the Perseus radiant.

One beauty was at 23:29hrs when it entered the atmosphere at Pegasus's square, cut across the tail of Cygnus, through Draco, and petered out before the bowl of The Plough in Ursa Major. It was a wide meteor, but was only around magnitude +2, and fluttered in brighteness to +1 as it traveled. I thought this was strange, given the strong distance it traveled against its apparent brightness. There was no atmospheric haze to interfere with estimating the magnitude. Did anyone else spot this?

That's then I called Albert White to see if he was observing following his request for fellow observers in Dublin, but he was indoors as it was cloudy. You guys on the East coast missed out! Albert advised me that there was also potentially the Kappa Cygnids, which radiate from around Alberio. I can confirm seeing these, but for most of them just assumed before talking to him that they were well-traveled Perseids (when tracing the rest of the path back to Perseus).

I decided to call it a night at 01:15hrs, having definitely settled on the best meteoric display of the Perseids - and even ahead of the actual peak - I have seen since the last best display I recorded, back in 2002. A low count was 4 to 6 meteors per minute.

If the skies stay clear for tonight, then I think we are in for a treat!

Seanie.