Greetings yet again all,
  It’s kind of hard to believe with all the clear nights we’ve had lately, but last night might have been the best of them all for most of the night!  The ACAC’s monthly star party was a smash hit earlier in the evening as members and guests enjoyed telescopic views of Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, the famous double star Albireo and several Messier objects.
   In between, we caught several lovely CAPs, including a gorgeous -2 orange beauty that broke up and flared several times on its path!  Wow!  Then we went over to Butler Beach and observed for another hour or so seeing many more meteors of all types and enjoying each other’s company and the gentle sounds of the surf and the sea breezes.
   We finally adjourned the star party a bit after 1:00 a.m. and I continued on by cruising down to Matanzas Inlet for yet more meteor watching under spectacular clear and pitch black skies.  The stars looked like hundreds of glittering diamonds strewn across an inky, jet black background when I got down there!  It was breathtaking!  The likes of which I have never seen better from anywhere on Earth.
    I could easily see with the naked eye, dozens of etched and mottled dark dust lanes in the Milky Way superimposed across partially resolved star clouds, giving an almost 3D type effect visually.  It was like that all along the length of it, from horizon to horizon!  I was speechless!  Such is the clarity potential of the full-fledged, maximum strength Bermuda High and enough distance away from man-made light pollution!
    Needless to say, meteors were jumping out all over the sky and just ten minutes after I started, a bright yellow, -5  SDA fireball dropped into the southern horizon no more than three degrees up.  About ten minutes later, a  bright blue, -2 PER streaked across Lyra, passing almost right over Vega, leaving behind a five second train etched on the sky!  I was on major league sensory pumped up overload by then!
Here’s my results:
CAP – alpha Capricornids
JPE – July Pegasids
ANT – Anthelions
PER – Perseids
SDA: South delta Aquariids
PAU – Piscids Austrinids
GDR – July gamma Draconids
BPE – beta Perseids
Session One:
July 30/31 2016, observer: Paul Jones, Location: North Bank of Matanzas Inlet, Florida, Lat: 29.75N, Long: 81.24W (approximately 18 miles south of St. Augustine, Florida).LM: 7.0, clear, Facing: west
0150 – 0250 EDT (0550 – 0650 UT), Teff: 1.0 hour, No breaks
18 SDA: -5, 0, +1(2), +2(3), +3(5), +4(3), +5(2), +6
4 PER: -2, +1, +2, +3
3 CAP: +1, +2, +3
2 ANT: +4, +5
14 SPO: +2, +3(3). +4(5), +5(3), +6(2)
41 total meteors
14 of the 41 meteors (8 of the SDAs, 3 of the PERs, 1 CAP and 2 SPOs) left trains. Yellow was noted in couple of the brighter SDAs and CAPs and blue in the -2 PER..
Session Two:

July 30/31, 2016 Observer: Paul Jones, Location: North Bank of Matanzas Inlet, Florida, Lat: 29.75N, Long: 81.24W (approximately 18 miles south of St. Augustine, Florida).

 

0250 – 0350 EDT (0650 – 0750 UT) Teff: 1.0 hour, No breaks, LM: 7.0, Clear, except for some slight haze near the end of the hour.

15 SDA: -3, 0, +1(2) +2(3), +3(3), +4(3), +5(2)

7 PER: 0, +2(2), +3(3), +4,  

2 CAP: 0. +2

1 GDR: +2

1 ANT: +3

11 SPO: +1, +2, +3(2), +4(4), +5(3)

37 total meteors

13 of the 37 meteors (6 of the SDAs, 3 PERs, 1 CAP and 3 SPO) left trains. Yellow was noted in couple of the brighter SDAs CAPs and PERs.

Seventy-eight meteors in just two hours!   Toward the end of the second hour, haze and bright flashes of lightning from a pop up thunderstorm to the west, quickly degraded the pristine skies.  It just goes to show how fast conditions can change around here!  All that interference and my growing tiredness convinced me reluctantly that it was time to pack it up.

But not before I had a busy second hour that featured another bright yellow SDA, this one a -3 dropping into the SW horizon – again, not more than 3 degrees above the horizon.  I had another nice GDR ad several lovely PERs as well. Also, we all had seen a lovely +1 GDR casually earlier in the evening during the star party.

It’s back to work (and reality) for me tomorrow, but I do plan to hit a couple of pre-dawns this week to monitor the PER build up.  More to follow…

Clear skies all, Paul J in North Florida