Kim wrote:
Total: 120 min. P: 183 N: 22
Wow. That's quite an effort. Congrats. - Kurt ================== Kaf Report from Little Mtn. 5:05am-5:30 MDT Since the peak shower was estimated by the NASA Fluixmater for 5:22am, I showed up at Little Mtn. at 5:00am to enjoy just the peak shower. A key characteristic of the Perseids as compared to other showers, is the distinct sharp shower peak centered within a 1/2 hour time frame. Unlike last year's Perseids that occurred at midnight to 1am where the Little Mtn. parking lot was packed and overflowing down Emigration Canyon Road, the early morning 2008 shower drew 8 cars, including myself. The experience was more intimate this year. The advancing civil twilight was on the eastern horizon with an NELM of 1 to 2 mags (alf Ori, alf Gem). ZLM: mag 5.0. The Milky Way was easily seen with dark cloud detail and was broken by a bright zodical light from the northeast-east horizon to Taurus. The Perseus Double cluster and M31 were naked-eye. All the shower peak Perseids seen were all bright fireballs (0 to 1.0 mags) with 0-2 deg smoke trailers clearly emanating from the shower radiant at about 65 degs alt. The deteriorating sky condition generally obscured any fainter meteors. Counts were: 05:00-05:10 P: 0 N: 0 05:10-05:20 P: 4 N: 0 05:20-05:25 P: 7 N: 1 mag. 2-3 05:25-05:30 P: 0 N: 0 By 5:30am, civil twilight was sufficiently advanced to make further observing not warranted. All-in-all, the fireballs of the shower peak had a duration/frequency pattern that was similar to last year's peak shower. This year's shower had more of an abrupt peak. Last year, immediately after the shower fireball peak, there were more post-peak fainter meteors at the zenith and to the southwest. Last year's shower was more dramatic, visually. The peak occurred with the radiant at about 10-20 degs alt and under broken skies, so the peak shower fireballs had longer, smokier, horizontal trails. This 2008 shower was more of a classic high altitude shower under clear, cloudless skies. Really quite nice. The observed peak rate count is consistent with the NASA Fluximator estimate for a suburban transition sky. The 5:22am MDT (11:22 UTC) visual peak was not consistent with a peak of 4-5am MDT (10 UTC) shown in the real time radio meteor data from the closest RMOBS network member station of Jeff Brower in Kelowna, British Columbia. See url - http://radio.data.free.fr/main.php3#Jeff%20Brower Brower's and other USA RMOBS radio stations also show an earlier peak at 1 am MDT (7 UTC). - Kurt