the perseids are here

Was out very late myself here in kerry, it cleared just before three am so i went out the back and dragged the girlfriend with me, saw about 6 or seven in quarter of an hour or so. The sleep caught up with sinead so she went to bed and I decided I will head out into the sticks for a better view. 10 minutes later and I had arrived to see a cloud bank on the horizon growing larger every minute. i had about another quarter of an hour and i reckon I saw one every minute or so.

The brightest of the night was when I was at home, a short bright one probably around -1.5 or -2 mag (possible brighter) or so, bright orange and left a trail. Sinead got to see it also which was good.

Lets hope it clears for tonight.....by the way if any one is in the Kerry region why not join KAC on short mountain from 11pm onwards.

Just looked at metcheck....not good for kerry 100% cloud

I was observing here in Bray from 23:50 untill 01:35,when it clouded over. I saw about 10 perseids every 15 mins or so they were all very fast and very yellow and I also noticed that they appeared very horizontal. At 00:05 the sky cleared above my head and I got a very clear view of Lyra and did a skecth hoping to identify which fuzzy bit between Sulafat and Sheliak is M57? in my sketch there are some nebulas objects below the imaginary line between these two stars, maybe the Ring Nebula is in these objects?
I also saw an extreamly bright and sustained for a good 30seconds Iridium flare just south of Delphinus at 00:45.Observing with Zeiss 10X50 binoculars.

Deirdre Kelleghan
IAS

Deirdre,

there is a chart of the field of M57 at www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=436 that may help . . . it's one of the better charts that cropped up on a Google search.

I also saw an extreamly bright and sustained for a good 30seconds Iridium flare just south of Delphinus at 00:45.

Al may have seen the flare mentioned above as well . . . he called me at one stage to say he had spotted a long and lingering brightening of some satellite. I think it was around the same time as your observation as well.

John[/url]

I got a very clear view of Lyra and did a skecth hoping to identify which fuzzy bit between Sulafat and Sheliak is M57? in my sketch there are some nebulas objects below the imaginary line between these two stars, maybe the Ring Nebula is in these objects?

You have to let me know how you are getting on Deirdre with M57. I have been trying to track it down with my 10X50's but no luck...I think I need to get a tripod.

Thanks for that link John, scrolling down to the chart for M57 it clearly shows the fuzzy M57 below the imaginary line, so when I get another look I will check it out again and try another drawing and get it locked down, I have several possibles below the line in my image from last night.

Deirdre Kelleghan
IAS

I had a good nights observing and imaging. I saw the lingering brightening of the satelitte at about that time, if it was the same one it was travelling north. While my scope and DSI was on a long exposure, 37 X 1.5 minutes I did a meteor count and got 29 in a 40 minute period between 01:40 and 02:20. Perhaps 3 won't count as they had a definite south-west to north-east journey, so they probably weren't Perseids. one was a very bright Perseid, it semed to head straight down to Earth and had a very long and bright tail. the tail appeared to continue to glow after the main body was extinguished, but perhaps this was an optical illusion. quite a lot had long fizzy tails. Tonight it's raining
Bill H.