Walking out to my fifth night of observations from Agios Pavlos, I was happy to see a clear and transparent sky, without the severe wind gusts that haunted me in some of the previous nights. I was eager to see if the SDA could keep up the rates that had started to climb in the last hour of the previous night. With the mosquitoes as my only annoyance, I was ready for four hours of hopefully rising meteor activity under an almost perfect night sky!
The first hour of observation hinted that the SDA had taken a leap in the activity level from the previous nights. 5 meteors were seen the first hour, with the radiant still quite low in the sky. The next three hours the rates increased further, with counts of 10, 9 and 11 respectively. A couple of bright meteors of magnitude -1 and +0 were also seen. The first hour also saw quite impressive CAP rates of 6, but declining throughout the night with rates of 3, 2 and 0 the last 3 hours. The Perseids were also quite active, with rates reaching 5 in the last hour with high radiant elevation. The best Perseid was a beautiful, yellow meteor that streaked into Pegasus at 22:34 UT. Sporadic rates between 9 and 16 added to the shower activity and kept me busy throughout the night!
A total of 110 meteors were seen in four hours of observation. Of these were 50 SPO, 11 CAP, 35 SDA, 11 PER, 1 GDR, and 2 ANT.
Observed showers:
Alpha Capricornids (001 CAP)
Southern Delta Aquarids (005 SDA)
Perseids (007 PER)
July Gamma Draconids (184 GDR)
Anthelion Source (ANT)
21:00 – 22:00. Teff: 1.00, F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 270, DEC: +20
SPO: 12 meteors. +0, +2, +3(3), +4(4), +5, +6(2)
CAP: 6 meteors. +0, +1, +2(2), +3, +5
SDA: 5 meteors. +1, +3, +4(2), +5
PER: +2, +3
GDR: 1 meteor. +2
ANT: 1 meteor. +4
22:00 – 23:00. Teff: 1.00, F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 285, DEC: +20
SPO: 16 meteors. +0, +2(2), +3(3), +4(3), +5(5), +6(2)
CAP: 3 meteors. +1(2), +4
SDA: 10 meteors. +0, +1, +2, +3, +4(2), +5(2), +6(2)
PER: 1 meteor. -1
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: 0 meteors.
23:00 – 00:05. Teff: 1.00 (5 minutes break), F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 300, DEC: +20
SPO: 9 meteors. +0, +2, +3, +4(4), +5, +6
CAP: 2 meteors. +2, +4
SDA: 9 meteors. -1, +1(2), +2, +3(3), +5(2)
PER: 3 meteors. +3, +4, +5
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: +5
00:05 – 01:05. Teff: 1.00, F: 1.00, Lm: 6.77, RA: 315, DEC: +20
SPO: 13 meteors. -1, +0, +1(2), +3, +4(4), +5(3), +6
CAP: 0 meteors.
SDA: 11 meteors. +1, +2(2), +3(2), +4(2), +5(2), +6(2)
PER: 5 meteors. +3, +4, +5(3)
GDR: 0 meteors.
ANT: 0 meteors.