The Backyard Test
Perseids, Day Two: Observation time: 11:30pm-2:00am. Number of meteors spotted: 70.
Considering where I live, with the level of light pollution (not counting the moon), I'd say that's pretty good. :) I started out sitting in my lawn chair again, but quickly decided to grab my beach towel so I could lay down in the grass instead. I'm really glad I did-I had a much wider view of the sky, so I was able to catch more meteors from behind than I would have in the chair. The backyard test? Well, when I first saw this place, and looked at the backyard, I thought it had potential-not a huge backyard (although bigger than the one on Hampshire), but the grass was well kept-enough room to spread out, and there are no trees(although plenty of trees in the surrounding yards), so there'd be a wide view of the sky. I first thought, gee, I bet I could watch the Perseids back here...turns out I was right!!! Yeah, there's some light pollution, plus the potential of lights from the neighbors, but all in all, not too bad.
We had clear skies!!! I was so excited-plus, the first meteor I spotted was nice and bright, and had a long tail that graduallly faded after the meteor disappeared (I love those!)
Some notes:
-Spotted first meteor just after 11:30-by midnight, I had seen 12. By 12:30, 20.
-One meteor was slow, bright, with a fading tail...the meteor seemed to flash as it was eaten up by the atmosphere-it was really cool. Kinda reminded me of the Enterprise-D going to warp. ;)
-Around 1:20am there was a flourish of activity-I saw about 2 every minute, for roughly 10 minutes.
Yes, this was a good night. :)
Considering where I live, with the level of light pollution (not counting the moon), I'd say that's pretty good. :) I started out sitting in my lawn chair again, but quickly decided to grab my beach towel so I could lay down in the grass instead. I'm really glad I did-I had a much wider view of the sky, so I was able to catch more meteors from behind than I would have in the chair. The backyard test? Well, when I first saw this place, and looked at the backyard, I thought it had potential-not a huge backyard (although bigger than the one on Hampshire), but the grass was well kept-enough room to spread out, and there are no trees(although plenty of trees in the surrounding yards), so there'd be a wide view of the sky. I first thought, gee, I bet I could watch the Perseids back here...turns out I was right!!! Yeah, there's some light pollution, plus the potential of lights from the neighbors, but all in all, not too bad.
We had clear skies!!! I was so excited-plus, the first meteor I spotted was nice and bright, and had a long tail that graduallly faded after the meteor disappeared (I love those!)
Some notes:
-Spotted first meteor just after 11:30-by midnight, I had seen 12. By 12:30, 20.
-One meteor was slow, bright, with a fading tail...the meteor seemed to flash as it was eaten up by the atmosphere-it was really cool. Kinda reminded me of the Enterprise-D going to warp. ;)
-Around 1:20am there was a flourish of activity-I saw about 2 every minute, for roughly 10 minutes.
Yes, this was a good night. :)
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