PERSEID METEOR SHOWER 2019

Location:  Front yard, Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  August 11, 2019 0300-0500hrs

Weather:  No breeze, to slight breeze, partly cloudy, hazy, cool 8C 91% humidity.  Lots of dew, no bugs.

Attendance:  David McCashion

Equipment:  Reclining lawn chair, Canon Rebel T3 with 18-55mm on tripod.

Objective:  To view and image the 2019 Perseid meteor shower, which has been mostly washed out by the moon phase this year.  Moon was down by 3am, which is why this time was selected.

Report:

• Faced mostly towards the Summer triangle, which was very high to the west and also observed to the south.
• From 0306-0406 viewed 17 Perseids, mostly yellowish, about Aldebaran bright.  Fast moving, many were very faint.  Also viewed 5 faint sporadics and one very bright Bolide coming straight down to the west.
• Clouds moved in from the North around 0330 and covered the northern half of the sky for 20 mins.
• Imaged from 0415-0500hrs.  Observed 4 more Perseids while imaging, but they flew everywhere but through the camera field of view.  Had much trouble with lens fogging up.
• Orion rising at 4am.

Twelve second image of Orion rising just before 1st light.  Facing East.

• First light just before 5am.
• Seen many satellites with one doing an iridium flare.

OBSERVING REPORT FOR AUGUST 4, 2019 (Updated)

Location:  Front yard and front deck, Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  August 4, 2019 2245-0300hrs

Weather:  No wind, clear, 11C/79% humidity @ 2300hrs, 7C/82% humidity @ 0300hrs.  Needed sweater, jacket and hat.  Some moths at first, then no bugs.

Attendance:  David McCashion

Equipment:  Canadian Telescopes 80 ED/APO with 19 mm eyepiece.  Canon Rebel T3 with 18-55mm eyepiece and using telescope at prime focus.   Images processed with DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop.

Objective:  To view and image deep sky objects along the Milkyway.

Report:

Viewed and imaged Jupiter, Saturn, M22, M16, The Coathanger, M71, M31 and the Perseus Double Cluster.  Also did a quick search for faint Comet C/2018 W2 Africano which is in Camelopardalis.  After reviewing processed image of that area of sky, could not confirm a sighting.

Twelve images stacked, 40 second, ISO 6400.

Ten images stacked, 40 second, ISO 6400.

Single shot, 20 second, ISO 6400

Observed many satellites, six Perseids and 3 sporadic, with two Perseids being very bright, one leaving a smoke trail.  Most meteors were seen coming straight down from high over-head, to the south, and were fast movers. Some were very faint.  A few more fast moving very faint meteors were not confirm-able.

Looked for Auroras, which were reported to be possible on this night, but didn't observe any.

Taurus rising in the early morning.

A space station flyover image from Aug 2, 2019

Single shot, 8 second, ISO 400.