July 8-23 meteors

The Arizona Monsoon season is in full effect. The start date for this year’s monsoon was July 9 and it hasn’t let up since then. While this means we are getting much needed rain, every night has been affected by clouds. Eight of the last 16 nights resulted in no meteor detections with another 2 only seeing 2 meteors. The forecast is for more of the same this week though rain activity may slow down for a day or two.

The number of active meteor showers has exploded over the past few weeks. While most are minor, we are specifically tracking three showers. The Perseid (PER) shower is one of the best from year to year. Resulting from dust released from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, this year’s Perseids will peak during the night of Aug 11/12. A bright gibbous Moon will make this year’s Perseids a bit more subdued than usual. The Alpha Capricornids (CAP) come from the low activity short-period comet 169P/NEAT. The CAP doesn’t produce large numbers of meteors but is a steady producer during the later half of July and early August. The Southern delta Aquariids (SDA) straddle the border between minor and major shower. They are one of many showers related to a family of objects including the short-period comet 96P/Machholz, asteroid 2013 EH1, the Marsden and Kracht group of Sun-skimming comets, the Quadrantid and Daytime Arietid meteor shower. The SDAs will peak at the end of the month.

Obs Date(UT)     Time    TOT SPO ANT PER SDA CAP Oth
SAL 2017-07-23  00h 00m
SAL 2017-07-22  07h 39m   21  11  0   4   2   1   3
SAL 2017-07-21  01h 11m   1   0   0   0   0   0   0
SAL 2017-07-20  06h 39m   15  9   1   0   1   1   3
SAL 2017-07-19  04h 07m   7   4   1   0   0   2   0
SAL 2017-07-18  03h 31m   6   3   2   0   0   1   0
SAL 2017-07-17  00h 00m   
SAL 2017-07-16  00h 00m
SAL 2017-07-15  00h 14m   1   0   0   -   -   0   1
SAL 2017-07-14  00h 00m
SAL 2017-07-13  00h 00m
SAL 2017-07-12  07h 04m   11  7   1   -   -   0   3
SAL 2017-07-11  00h 00m
SAL 2017-07-10  00h 00m
SAL 2017-07-09  05h 42m   14  7   1   -   -   2   4
SAL 2017-07-08  00h 00m

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
PER - Perseids
SDA - Southern delta Aquariids
CAP - alpha Capricornids
Oth - other minor showers