Greetings again all,
     For what must surely be the umpteenth time in a row, I was able to get out at Matanzas Inlet (MI) for 3 1/2 more exquisite hours of Perseid meteor watching under the as always stunning MI skies.  I was joined this morning by new friends Sara Clifton, “A. W.” and A. W.’s son Hunter for a very varied and intriguing morning of flounder gigging and meteor watching!  Those are two past times rarely engaged in on the same night (as one requires looking down, the other: looking up…;o)!
     Sara and I got there about 12:30 a.m. and with almost two hours to moon set, we quickly joined A. W. and Hunter out flounder gigging on the MI sand and mud flats.  A. W. has a strong light he uses for spotting the elusive flounders and we followed them around the shallow water and flats, spotting blue crabs, sting rays, mullet and other estuarine marine critters.   Several times we encountered schools of small mullet who bushed against our legs as the swam past us.  A. W. and Hunter even caught some small flounder with their bare hands to show them to us. Neither Sara nor I had never petted a flounder before!  Overall, it was a great experience!
    I came up to the parking lot a bit before the others did and just as I got up to the car, I saw a flash on the ground. Looking up quickly, I caught the tail end of a beautiful, golden yellow delta Aquariid fireball of a least -5 magnitude streaking due north along the meridian. It must have lasted several seconds and covered a fair chunk of the entire sky.  It was almost, but not quite, as awesome as the one last night!  The time was 1:30 a.m. EDT.
   I started in at 2:00 a.m. EDT and with Sara, A. W. and Hunter, watched another fine display of bright and colorful Perseids popping around the sky like popcorn.  They hadn’t slacked off much and they were still doing the spurting thing as they had done the night before.  Throw in some fine delta Aquariids, eta Eridanids and kappa Cygnids and it was a top notch meteor watch enjoyed with friends once again!
Here’s my results:
Observed for radiants:
ERI – eta Eridanids
ANT – Anthelions
PER – Perseids
SDA: South delta Aquariids
PAU – Piscids Austrinids
NDA: North delta Aquariids
KCG: kappa Cygnids
BPE – beta Perseids
Aug 12/13 2016, Observer: Paul Jones, Location: North Bank of Matanzas Inlet, Florida, Lat: 29.75N, Log: 81.24W (approximately 18 miles south of St. Augustine, Florida). LM: 7.0, Clear,  Facing west
2:00 – 3:00 a.m. EDT ( 0600 – 0700 UT)
35 PER: -4, -2, -1(2), 0(4), +1(6), +2(9), +3(7), +4(4), +5
2 SDA: +2, +3
5 NDA: +1, +2(3), +3
2 ERI: +1, +3
2 KCG: +1. +4
6 SPO: +2(2), +3(2), +4(2)
52 total meteors
3:00 – 4:00 a.m. EDT (07500 – 0800 UT)
49 PER: -3, -2, -1(2), 0(5), +1(4), +2(10), +3(13), +4(10), +5(3)
1 NDA: +5
7 SPO: +2, +3(4), +4(2)
57 total meteors
4:00 – 5:00 a.m. EDT (0800 – 0900 UT)
62 Perseids: -4, -3(2), -2, -1(3), 0(5),+1(7), +2(10), +3(19), +4(10) +5(4)
6 NDA: +2, +3(4), +4
2 SDA: +3, +4
1 ERI: +2, +3(2)
9 SPO: +1, +2, +3(3), +4(4)
82 total meteors
5:00 – 5:30 a.m. (0900 – 0930 UT)
37 Perseids: -4, -3, -2, -1(2), 0(4), +1(6), +2(9), +3(8), +4(5)
5 Sporadic: 0, +2, +3, +4(2)
59 total meteors
    Overall total: 3.5 hours, 231 total meteors (overall average of 66 meteors per hour).  Total number of Perseids: 183 (overall Perseid hourly average: 52.3 per hour). I probably missed recording some meteors due to the excitement surrounding many of the ones we saw and/or they just plain hit so fast and/or too frequently in spurts to keep up with them all on data recording!
    Of the 183 observed PERs, 55 left visible trains (30%).  Several PER trains lasted anywhere from 1 to 7 seconds on the sky.  Yellow and blue were the mostly observed PER colors.
Brenda Branchett also got out for two very productive hours down in Deltona, Florida, here is her report:
Greeting from Deltona, again!
Got out for two hours this morning to 4.5-5.5 magnitude skies. I did have some fast moving clouds that hampered my first hour for about 10 minutes.
Location:  Deltona, Fl.
Sky coverage; 70 percent/ 4.5-5.0 magnitude
Time:  3:30-4:30 a.m.
Total Perseids:  179
Total meteors: 204
Per — 85  (Two minus 4. Brighter members averaging minus 1 and 2, longer trains etched against the night sky. Thisis hour I had 10 minutes of cloud which covered my sky.)
Sporadic — 5
DA  — 4
CYG –3
Total : 97
Sky Conditions:  5.0-5.5 magnitude
Time:  4:30-5:30a.m.
Per — 94 ( One minus 4; most were in the minus 1, 2 and 3 range. a number of 2nd and 3rd magnitude)
Sporadic — 7
DA  — 4
CYG  — 2
Total: 107
Overall,  my impression is that they put on a better show than night before, my totals for the two hours proves that.  Of course, sky conditions make a big difference and how alert the observer is!!!!
     As you can tell from all these impressive numbers, we had quite a busy morning!  A huge shout out to Sara Clifton, A. W. and Hunter, as well as Brenda in Deltona for getting out once again and keeping me awake and the ACAC at the forefront of amateur visual meteor astronomy!
More later, Paul J in North Florida