The past two nights have been a mix of meteor showers and rain showers. Luckily the sky has been clear enough, long enough to still catch one or two dozen meteors per night. Even with the patchy coverage, you can see that the Perseids are the most active shower. Visual observers for the IMO are reporting ZHRs between 20-35. Rates should reach between 60-120 by the middle of the week. Over the past few years the Perseids have peaked at ZHRs of 109 (2013), 90-120 (2012), 58 (2011), 91 (2010), 140-180 (2009), 116 (2008), and 93 (2007). We’ll have to wait and watch to see what this year’s Perseids have in store though the nearly Full Moon will hamper the number of Perseids that can be seen.
The Perseids (PER) will peak on Wednesday morning August 13 UT. Bob Lunsford as written an excellent guide on how to observe this year’s Perseids for the American Meteor Society here.
Obs Date(UT) Time TOT SPO ANT CAP PAU PER SDA SIA ERI ATR KCG BAR MPR SAL 2014-08-10 04h 55m 23 7 0 2 1 9 0 - 2 1 1 0 0 SAL 2014-08-09 03h 15m 13 4 1 1 0 4 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 SAL - SALSA3 camera in Tucson (Carl Hergenrother) VIS - Visual observations from Tucson (Carl Hergenrother) Time - 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 - Antihelions CAP - Alpha Capricornids PAU - Piscis Austrinids PER - Perseids SDA - Southern Delta Aquariids SIA - Southern Iota Aquariids ERI - Eta Eridanids ATR - Alpha Triangulids KCG - Kappa Cygnids BAR - Beta Arietids MPR - Mu Perseids
The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids, Meteors 