Perseids Watch

I kept an eye on the clouds, throughout the day, and as the sun was setting, they began to clear. I kept an eye out throughout the evening, and eventually, they finally cleared properly. So I got out a meteor lounger (more commonly known as a sun lounger) and lay back to watch the skies. No kit, just the oldest astro equipment in the book, a pair of the good old eyeballs. I started by just having a look around. I was surprised to find that, even though, the sky from the horizons up to around 20 degrees was pretty rubbish with a sickly glow to it, overhead was surprisingly clear. I was able to see the faint wonderful glow of the Milky Way arching overhead from Cassiopeia in the North, through Cygnus, and down to Vulpecula in the South, lovely. I lay there scanning back and forth. Throughout an hour and a half I saw 9 Meteors, the 7th being the best by far, bright (I'd guestimate Mag 0 probably, not that I really have much of a clue), leaving behind a faintly glowing track across the sky for a few seconds. In that same time I saw 5 satellites.

About half way through, I caught a glimpse of some dull fluffy stuff creeping into my field of vision, oddly, it would not have looked out of place at Halloween as the shapes and holes looked like ghosts.. amazing what the imagination can come up with. I stayed to watch as long as I could, and, much to my amazement, the ghostly clouds, gradually vanished as slowly and gently as they had come, before fully crossing Cygnus. Marvelous.

One interesting thing, and amazing thing, to note, I was able to find and see M31, the Andromeda galaxy, ok only as a faint blob with averted vision, but it was definitely there, and in the right place, so that I wasn't imagining.

There were some very odd noises from the garden behind me, I don't know what passed through, but I didn't care.

In the end, I was forced in by the cold, my lower back aching, and having to get up for work.

I didn't get the rig out, and that's ok. I enjoyed this nights viewing.