No Perseids but nice consolation prize

Because Earth won't dashed stay still.

"Florian" wrote in message
...
Anthony, why are the star trails dashed lines?

-Florian

Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 01:56:01 +0300, Anthony Ayiomamitis
wrote:



Well, unfortunately I did not get my Perseids and the low activity did
not help but my backup plan worked like a charm. I still need some minor
processing but I am absolutely delighted to present the following taken
under mag 6.5+ skies 2.5 hours southwest of Athens:
http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Star-Trails-2005-08-13.htm .





Hi Chris,

Very nice!


Thanks.

I had somewhat better luck with the Perseids, in spite of a generally
poor showing and a lot of cloudy weather. But my tireless allsky camera
chugged away for three nights and managed to get about 130 meteors. So
here is the shower as seen from Colorado:
http://www.cloudbait.com/science/perseid2005.html


That is one cool photo! An all-sky camera is something which has
crossed my mind as well. I considered getting the Peleng super wideangle
lens which gives you a 180-d view (obviously it is a fish-eye lens) for
something similar as well as other projects.

I think it is interesting that the radiant is so clear, even though the
images are collected over many hours. Obviously, the majority of meteors
are happening over a fairly narrow time span near dawn. Even though the
overall activity was lower than usual this year, there seem to have been
more impressive fireballs.


From the same location and date last year, I easily observed probably
ten times as much activity. The radiant in your all-sky photograph is
strongly implied and for the reasons you describe.

Good stuff!

Anthony.

_______________________________________________ __

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com