Well, the Perseids have come and gone for the year. The night was beautifully clear and dark. One of the best I have seen this year. The Alpaca Farm set up a wonderful location for the star party, dark skies and plenty of space to sit or lie down and watch the sky. About 100 people, including children, were in attendance. Ziv lead the Hebrew tour and I led the English tour. We were out from about 8:00pm to 3:00am. The meteor shower got off to a slow start, and we didn't start seeing lots until after midnight. But then the show picked up and we were sometimes seeing several every 10 seconds. But meteors fall in bursts, not continuously. I don't think we ever reached the maximum rate of 100 per hour but around 2:00am, near the peak time, we were probably averaging around 30 per hour. Most were short, bright bursts of light.
I held my meteorite raffle lots more than once per hour, and many happy people went home with their own meteorites. I'm already looking forward to next year's show. In the mean time stay tuned for the next star party on December 13 (Thursday night) when the King of the Meteor Showers, The Geminids, peaks.
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Perseids over Stonehenge |