The following night, I was out again at Bootland Farm to observe.  I went with a full load of camping gear, as the weather looked favourable for the next few nights.  I decided to sleep there at the end, and then decide where I wanted to go next without requiring a trip back home 🙂

This time, I had the company of Dan and Jim Sofia, setup with 8” SCT and MallinCam.  The sky was clear but not quite as transparent as the previous night.  Some effects of forest fire smoke was visible, reducing sky clarity a bit near the horizons, but the sky was still very nice high up!  The temperature was a comfortable 10-11C but it was very damp.  Jim was already in action when I got there but he was struggling with dew affecting the corrector plate of his scope (12v hair dryer to the rescue!).  Once he got going again, Jim treated us with impressive MallinCam views of M51, M13 and M57 on the monitor.  He also showed some previous processed images that looked very good!

I settled into my chair shortly after midnight and observed for nearly four hours until 4:15am.  I saw 126 meteors (breakdown: 80 Perseids, 9 South Delta Aquariids, 3 Capricornids, 3 anthelions, 3 Eridanids, 1 Kappa Cygnid, 1 North Delta Aquariid and 26 sporadics).  Perseids were similar to the previous night with hourly rates 17, 22, 22 and 19.  However, no significant fireballs were seen.  The Perseids also seemed to produce more of the faint, short path variety on this night.  I felt as though I could easily miss these meteors if I wasn’t sharp or paying full attention.  The brightest was a -3 PER that flared and left an 8 seconds train.

I noticed a few possible Beta Perseids, radiating from a point near Algol.

The fourth hour was cut a bit short (by 10 min) due to clouds increasing above 20% in my field.

I really enjoyed viewing with Jim’s fine Celestron 8×50 binoculars… The North American nebula, M31, the Andromeda galaxy, M33 and the Double Cluster were all real beauties!  Thank you Jim!

August 10/11 2018, 04:20-08:15 UT (00:20-04:15 EDT)
Location: Bootland Farm (Stewartville), Ontario, Canada
(Long: -76 deg 29′; Lat: 45 deg 23′)

Observed showers:
kappa Cygnids (KCG) – 18:59 (285) +50
alpha Capricornids (CAP) – 21:10 (317) -05
Anthelion (ANT) – 22:08 (332) -12
Northern delta Aquariids (NDA) – 23:04 (346) +02
Southern Delta Aquariids (SDA) – 23:30 (353) -12
Piscids Austrinids (PAU) – 23:44 (356) -19
Perseids (PER) – 03:12 (048) +57
eta Eridanids (ERI) – 03:00 (045) -12

04:20-05:25 UT (00:20-01:25 EDT); clear; 3/5 trans; F 1.00; LM 6.48; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.00 hr
PER: seventeen: -3; -2; 0; +1(3); +2(2); +3(2); +4(4); +5(3)
CAP: two: -1; +2
SDA: two: +5(2)
Sporadics: five: +2; +3; +4(2); +5
Total meteors: Twenty-six

05:25-06:25 UT (01:25-02:25 EDT); clear; 3/5 trans; F 1.00; LM 6.51; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.00 hr
PER: twenty-two: -2; +1(3); +2(3); +3(5); +4(3); +5(4); +6(3)
SDA: three: 0; +4; +5
ANT: one: +4
ERI: one: +2
Sporadics: five: +1; +3(2); +4(2)
Total meteors: Thirty-two

06:25-07:25 UT (02:25-03:25 EDT); clear; 3/5 trans; F 1.00; LM 6.55; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.00 hr
PER: twenty-two: 0(2); +1(2); +2(4); +3(3); +4(6); +5(4); +6
ANT: two: +3; +4
SDA: two: +3; +4
ERI: two: +1; +3
KCG: one: +3
NDA: one: +4
Sporadics: nine: +2; +3(2); +5(5); +6
Total meteors: Thirty-nine

07:25-08:15 UT (03:25-04:15 EDT); 10-20% clouds during last 15 min; 3/5 trans; F 1.05; LM 6.40; facing SSE50 deg; teff 0.83 hr
PER: nineteen: 0(2); +1(6); +2(3); +3(2); +4(3); +5(3)
SDA: two: +4; +5
CAP: one: +2
Sporadics: seven: -1; 0; +2; +3; +4(2); +6
Total meteors: Twenty-nine

Clear skies,

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario