Last night saw the most Perseids detected so far this year. While the total number of meteors dropped from 29 to 24, the number of Perseids (PER) rose from 3 to 11 when compared with the pervious night. Compared to previous years, a total count of 24 meteors is low. Back on August 8, 2014, the same camera detected 47 meteors. On that night 25 Perseids were detected. A very bright sky due to the nearly Full Moon may be part of this year’s lowish numbers.
The featured image is a map of the sky centered just north of the winter constellation of Auriga. The ⊗ mark towards the upper right in northern Perseus is the radiant of the Perseids. The thick lines with arrow heads are the location of the meteors on the sky while the thin lines are the paths of the meteors extrapolated back towards their radiant. You can see how the 11 Perseids appear to radiate from the Perseid radiant.
Not sure how much longer the clear skies will last over Tucson. Monsoon moisture is moving back in and the forecast is for clouds and rain to start up again by the weekend if not sooner.
Obs Date(UT) Time TOT SPO ANT PER SDA CAP KCG Oth SAL 2017-08-08 08h 44m 24 6 0 11 2 0 0 5 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 KCG - kappa Cygnids Oth - other minor showers
The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids, Meteors 