Wendy and I went to her parent's house last week to watch the Perseid meteor shower. This was the ideal year for Perseids because the moon wouldn't interfere; there was a new moon right when the Perseids were peaking. And Wendy's parents have a much darker sky than we do, so I was hopeful that if the weather cooperated, we'd get to see a lot of meteors. This post is a recap of what we saw.
Friday
The first night we were there was Friday. As dusk settled in, there were still a number of clouds in the sky and some haze, much to my disappointment. Wendy thought conditions would get better, though, and as usual, she was right. We sat out on the deck from 10pm to 11pm, and counted 14 meteors. A number of them were beautiful: bright and long streaks which left a trail of smoke visible a second or two after the meteor was gone. These long-trail meteors are called "earth-grazers" and are best seen in the early night as meteors skim off the Earth's atmosphere.
By 11pm we were tired from our day of traveling, so we went to bed for a few hours. We got up at 3am, since more meteors were visible in the hours before dawn. We sat on the deck for an hour and counted 30 meteors! Most of these were shorter, fainter, and not as impressive. At 4am we went back to bed.
Saturday
The skies were much clearer on Saturday night. I spent 3 and a half hours on the deck that night, lying on a comfy cot that Beth had thoughtfully brought! I saw 39 meteors, which was fewer than Friday, despite nearly twice the amount of viewing time.
Sunday
Sunday night was the predicted peak of the Perseid meteor shower, and unfortunately it was mostly cloudy. There were a few broken sections in the clouds where I could see stars, so I still sat on the deck and watched what I could. After a while, the southern sky became clear, so I just watched that. Even with the limited viewing, I still saw 16 meteors.
Monday
It was totally cloudy Monday night, so there was no viewing at all.
Tuesday
Tuesday was the last night of our visit. After some heavy showers during the day, the clouds finally moved away. The rain must have cleaned out the air, because the stars that night were spectacular! By far the best night of our stay. It was the first night where I really wished I could have brought my 8" telescope. I spotted 3 Messier objects with the naked eye:
- M7, Ptolemy's Cluster
- M8, The Lagoon Nebula
- M31, The Andromeda Galaxy, which is over 2 million light years away!
Venus and the crescent moon were low in the west, and made a beautiful sight. In addition to Venus, we also saw Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.
It was hard to tear myself away from the starry night, but when I finally did, I had seen 7 meteors.
Epilogue
Here's the final tally:
- Friday: 44
- Saturday: 39
- Sunday: 16
- Monday: 0
- Tuesday: 7
We saw just over 100 meteors during our stay! I would call that a huge success. Also, from our experience, the peak was clearly Friday night. A few other notes:
- Not all of the meteors we saw were Perseids. In fact, I was surprised at how many weren't. I later learned there were several other minor meteor showers at the same time, which explained it.
- On a couple of nights, there was some haze (possibly from wildfires in Canada), and as a result when a plane flew overhead we could see the light in front of the plane from its headlamps!
- From our experience, the meteors early in the night were much more impressive than those before dawn. If I could do it again, I'd spend more time watching early in the night and not bother with the 3am wake-ups.
- I brought along a couple of items that were very useful. One was a red flashlight that Wendy got me as a birthday present. It provided light without ruining our night vision. The other was a pitch counter, which I used to keep track of how many meteors we saw. It was much easier to click the counter than to keep a running tally in my head.
A nice bonus to our visit is we got to see our nieces and nephew. It was fun to hang out with them. The only downside to our visit is that I caught a cold. Overall, though, it was a fun trip. I can still picture some of the meteors we saw; they were absolutely beautiful.