July is usually one of the best month for meteor observing. This is especially true of the 2nd half of the month as many showers are active including 2 major ones, the Southern Delta Aquariids (SDA) and Perseids (PER). Unfortunately for me July is also the cloudiest month of the year due to our annual monsoon. This month was frustrating for 2 reasons. 1… except for a few days around the 4th, it was mostly cloudy every night resulting in very short clear windows for meteor watching. 2… even though it was cloudy almost every night and the rain was quite close by, it just never seemed to rain at my house until the very end of the month.
With the above in mind, the actually nightly numbers below are not a good measure of the amount of activity that is currently visible. One thing that is apparent from the table is the explosion in the number of active meteor showers as the month of July progressed. Many of these showers are minor and produce only a meteor or 2 per hour. Showers such as the aforementioned SDA and PER as well as the Alpha Capricornids (CAP) and Piscis Austrinids can produce up to 5-10 meteors per hour nightly.
August 1/2 was the last bad weather night. Starting on August 2/3 the monsoon takes a break and the nights are once again clear. This break in the monsoon action will be short lived (by Friday the rain/clouds should be back). The clear weather did give me a chance to test my new camera system which should result in even larger nightly meteor catches. More on that in the next post.
Obs Date(UT) Time TOT SPO ANT CAN JPE CAP PAU PER SDA MUL ATR GDR ZDR TUS 2010-08-02 01h19m 7 4 0 - - 1 0 1 1 - - - - TUS 2010-08-01 00h18m 1 0 0 - - 0 0 0 1 - - - - TUS 2010-07-28 00h19m 2 1 1 - - 0 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 TUS 2010-07-25 00h39m 3 1 0 - - 0 0 0 2 - 0 0 0 TUS 2010-07-24 02h58m 7 3 0 - - 0 0 1 0 - 0 0 - TUS 2010-07-21 02h59m 3 3 0 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 - - - TUS 2010-07-18 00h30m 1 1 0 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 - - - TUS 2010-07-17 02h12m 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 - - - - - TUS 2010-07-13 02h29m 10 9 0 0 1 0 - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-12 01h59m 7 7 0 0 0 0 - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-10 00h19m 1 0 1 0 0 - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-09 01h17m 2 2 0 0 0 - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-08 00h16m 1 0 0 1 0 - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-07 05h53m 14 12 1 1 - - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-06 07h55m 10 9 1 - - - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-05 07h54m 17 16 1 - - - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-04 07h53m 19 18 1 - - - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-03 01h34m 7 7 0 - - - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-02 05h44m 2 1 1 - - - - - - - - - - TUS 2010-07-01 07h31m 7 5 2 - - - - - - - - - - TUS - Camera in Tucson operated by Carl Hergenrother SDG - Camera in San Diego operated by Bob Lunsford TotTime - Total amount of time each camera looked for meteors TOT - Total number of meteors detected SPO - Sporadics (meteors not affiliated with any particular meteor shower) ANT - Antihelion CAN - c Andromedids JPE - July Pegasids CAP - Alpha Capricornids PAU - Piscis Austrinids PER - Perseids SDA - Southern Delta Aquariids MUL - Mu Lyrids ATR - Alpha Triangulids GDR - Gamma Draconids ZDR - Zeta Draconids AUP - August Piscids
