Perseids at 40 per hour

Well spotted loads of Perseids this year, pretty clear, no Moon, too much light pollution (town of 36000 people) but averaging 40 per hour. This is based on observations between 11:30 (BST) 00:50 with two sets of eyes looking east.

Spotted a very weird object, dark-orangy colour about -1 mag appeared in Cassiopeia and travelled through Pegasus all the way to the horizon in about 5-8 seconds. The distance it travelled instantly pops into my mind as a satellite, but doing it that fast and at around 00:30 when I very much doubt the Sun is illuminating any objects in that low of an orbit. Persieds are typically green in colour, the ones I saw lasting say 10° at the most and leaving trails. So not sure exactly what it is.

Also think I saw a tumbling satellite, was blinking on and off every few seconds, this was around 11:50 traveling south to north.

Perseid in Andromeda taken by  Rick Scott and Joe Orman on August 12th 1997

I also believe I saw M31 the Andromeda galaxy, which is the first time I've seen it with just my eyes - although just barely with light pollution making it a hmm am I seeing it or not moment. Not bad going for my eyes to see 2.2 - 2.9 million light years with all this light being sent up into the sky. Just think, even though it's that far away it's about 12 times the size of a full moon in the sky. You can actually see it in the above photo too - it's the star with a slight smudge around it near to where the meteor begins.

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1 comment

Comment from: Catherine [Member] · http://www.catmoo.co.uk/
So now I see what you were doing.
13th August 2005 @ 09:19

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