Vern’s Weblog

I spent the weekend near Fox Park, WY at the annual “Weekend Under The Stars” (WUTS) star party. Excellent conditions this year, no dew, mostly clear all night, temperature in the low 50s, no wind, and fair to good turbulence. Around 2 am Monday morning I counted about 30 stars within the great square of Pegasus indicating that the limiting magnitude was around +6.5 (I’m an old geezer, those with good eyesight would do better).

Just after midnight I abandoned the scope, put a tarp on the ground and got out some cushions and blankets from the RV. Laying on the ground next to my wonderful wife, looking up into the blackness at the incredible Milky Way and the numerous brilliant stars from a dark sky site was a great experience. It gives a much different perspective than our normal (vertical) view as you can see so much more of it (highly recommended).

My meteor counts early Monday morning Aug 13 were:

0:30 to 1:30 am : 57 total (54 Perseids, 3 Delta Aquarids)
1:30 to 2:30 am : 77 total (73 Perseids, 4 Delta Aquarids)

These are pretty close to the typical peak rate for the Perseids (60 to 80 per hour).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Astronomy, Observing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.