PERSEID METEOR SHOWER 2020

 Location:  Petersville Hill on Hwy 7, NB, Canada

Date Time:  August 12, 2020 2244-0144hrs

Weather:  Mostly cloudy to partly cloudy to mostly clear with much haziness and some ground fog.  Surprisingly warm breeze at times stronger than others, towards the end of observing session, air was completely still.  No dew and a few bugs, 23C at Petersville Hill at 0144hrs and 14C in Saint John at 0215hrs.  Was foggy all the way to Petersville Hill, at 2230hrs, but fog was mostly gone all the way to SJ on the way back at 0200hrs.  Sea fog was still very thick in SJ at 0215hrs.

Attendance:  Ed O'Reilly, David McCashion.

Equipment:  Ed's binoculars, my camera with 18-55mm lens, reclining lawn chairs.

Objective:  To view and image as many Perseid Meteors as possible.  This shower was due to peak on the nights of  Aug 11 and 12.  Aug 11 was fogged out in SJ, so after checking the weather websites, we thought we had a better chance to head towards Fredericton to see if we could find clear skies.  We found clear skies at Petersville Hill.

Report:

• Passing clouds and haziness was a major factor for at least the first two hours of observing, but at all times there was at least a part of the sky that we could see stars.
• Ed and I both looked for Comet Neowise, which was supposed to be below Arcturus, but could not find the comet with the binoculars.  Maybe due to too much haziness.
  
• In all, over 3 hours, together we seen 76 meteors with 15 being sporadics.  That averaged about 20 Perseids/hr.  Most Perseids were medium speed, either faint or very faint, yellowish.  There were 4 Perseids that were very bright, with one bolide that flew low, in the direction of Saint John and appeared to break up.  Most all the Persieds left a smoke trail.
  

 

•  Many satellites were seen going in all directions, for the entire observing session.