I had some above average place for skywatching. However the place was much better a few years ago, since some local
smartguy thought that it is a good idea to put brutal city lights into a small village. One could even read in the proximity of
these lights. It is such a pity because the place has such a beautiful night sky. Few years ago I even saw here 100+ meteors/night
on Perseid nights. So, because of the light pollution I had to find another spot on our small parcel of a land, but that costed
in visibility (~20% smaller field of view due to neighboring trees).
Aug. 11->12. - 32 meteors in ~5 hours. Maybe I should add 5-6 but I wasn't sure about them, my peripherial
vision saw something, maybe a meteor, maybe just a flicker. In these cases if I saw the afterglow I added that one to the statistics.
One of the meteors was just brutal. I saw the meteor's fall peeking THROUGH ONE OF THE BLOCKING TREE'S FOLIAGE. It wasn't part
of the Perseids - maybe this was an Alpha Capricornid, this meteor shower doesn't produce many meteors, but usually there are
some huge flares. Even saw a similar one a few years ago. To imagine the brightness of that meteor: huge streak running through
half of the sky, meanwhile illuminating the sky like the gibbous (almost full) moon...
Aug. 12->13. - 83 meteors in ~5,5 hours. This was clearly the peak. Both days between 2 and 3 AM was the best
time to catch them. (I mean seeing... ah, you understand.
) Saw 4 really luminous one, but I would dare calling only 2 of these
fireball.
Also saw a ton of aeroplanes... how I hate them... their continuous blinking... and a bunch of satellites.
Tried to make pictures, but alas, I don't have a DSLR camera, only
this. Kinda good stuff for learning, but not enough
sensitivity to use it effectively for short duration objects (lightnings, meteors etc.). Clearly, you can make pictures of these,
but you would need godly reflexes or a lot of luck. You can do long-exposure shots, but in my experiences you will have a
hard time getting some acceptable shots.
But I really don't want to leave you empty-handed.
Made
this picture 5 years ago. The picture is filled with artifacts because of ISO 3200, but
you can clearly see 2 beauties: the red-green streak of a Perseid, plus the Andromeda Galaxy mid-right.
And two pictures from last night.
One (a faint streak upper-mid, a bit to the left) and
two(you will clearly see this one).
All in all I would say these were good skywatching nights, despite the stupid streetlamps.
