Paint the Sky With Stars

Tonight's observing plan was to simply observe the Perseid meteor shower. I grabbed my recorder, portable CD player, my reclining lawn chair, and set up shop on my patio. My musical selection tonight was Enya's "Paint the Sky With Stars" CD. I hoped that the Perseids would do just that.

I observed pretty diligently from about 10:15pm to 12:30am CDT. My dad came out and watched with me for a while, allowing me to go inside and get a warmer jacket (who'd have thought, in August!). I added his counts to mine for the 5 minutes I was indoors.

There weren't as many Perseids as I had hoped, but what they lacked in quantity, they more than made up for in quality. Several of them were brighter than Vega. Most appeared white, but I did see two yellow meteors and one red one.

Here's my detailed report, broken up into 15-minute segments:


10:15p-10:30p
2 meteors

The first meteor I saw tonight was bright and red, streaking north to south low in the eastern sky. A good omen, I hoped.
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10:30p-10:45p
5 meteors

The first meteor in this time segment was also bright, but white, passing through Ursa Minoris.
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10:45p-11:00p
2 meteors

Just before 11:00p, a nice bright yellow meteor zipped across the low northern sky, going northeast to northwest.
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11:00p-11:15p
4 meteors
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11:15p-11:30p
3 meteors
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11:30p-11:45p
3 meteors

A few clouds are coming in from the north. They are fairly thin, but show up brightly from my town's skyglow.
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11:45p-12:00a
3 meteors

By midnight, the clouds had moved off, leaving the sky clear once again.
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12:00a-12:15a
1 meteor

The one meteor during this time period was worth the wait. It started out as a medium-bright meteor heading south, but quickly began to brighten into a yellow fireball, finally disappearing behind some trees in the south. It's long trail remained visible for several seconds afterward.
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12:15a-12:30a
3 meteors
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TOTAL: 26 meteors / 2.25 hrs = 11.5 meteors/hr