I'm not surprised at the "not so good" reviews from the Valley. Not since I was a kid has anything above Salt Lake Valley looked even halfway decent. So would go meteorite showers I would tend to think. I too thought the sky above the pit pretty good. I was pretty busy socializing to actually make a count, but based on the audible "ooohs and ahhhs" scale, I would guess that there were quite a few of these per minute. Everyone seemed to be having a good time watching them. I did notice last night at the pit, while anticipating the meteroite shower, that standing up real quick seemed to drastically increase the number of visible shooters. Although I think I was the only one who could see those, they were pretty cool nonetheless. Hey, thanks to all those who let me gaze through their large aperture scopes. I have to say that it was nice meeting you all. When leaving a dark sky site, is half a mile down the road considered far enough to turn the headlights back on? While trying to make the perfect dark site exit, I may have inadvertently run over some toes, sorry. My apologies also go out to the little creatures trying to cross the dirt road that didn't quite make it. ;) And finally, at 5:30 this morning while laying in wait to catch the neighbor lady's newspaper thief, I did notice how cool the Moon, Venus and Orion looked all in a straight line with each other. Even from the Valley! Good times... Quoting steve.nielsen@comcast.net:
14 neighbors and family headed out to a friends place in Vernon. It was a pretty good show, similar to Kim's experience. One every 2 or 3 minutes left a nice train. From 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM it got extremely dark because I fell asleep. From 4:00 AM on the moon took away most of the show or else the meteors slowed down. The moon was beautiful with Venus though. Good times.
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I'm surprised to see so many rather negative reports. I suspect it has more to do with folks not observing from a clear, dark site, a must for meteor observing. Our experience at Wolf Creek was great.
We saw many bright (mag 0 to -2 or so) meteors, most of which left trains that lasted two or three seconds. For about an hour beginning at around 11:30, my young son counted 47 Perseids, a respectable rate for a 6-year-old. After a 15-minute nap he insisted on getting up again to see some more, but when he reached 50 he finally threw in the towel and went to sleep. My wife stopped counting at 100 over a period of a couple hours. I only made one attempt at a serious count. Between 12:15 and 12:30 I counted 15 Perseids while observing directly overhead. For last night's conditions at Wolf Creek, that count would yield a ZHR of 60, just what to expect for a good Perseid event. By 5:00, the hour of the predicted maximum, I was too tired to observe seriously, but the Moon and twilight would have made it difficult to determine whether the "peak" rate was any better.
27 years ago last night I proposed to my wife while observing the Perseids from my parents' back yard. Rarely since have conditions allowed for a repeat of the (celestial) activity we experienced then. Last night was an exception.
Kim Hyatt Architect 1849 East 1300 South Salt Lake City, Utah 84108 801.631.5228 kimharch@msn.com
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