Below are notes from a variety of dates and times. I think the night I was socked-in was the best -- from what others saw, not from what I saw. So there is always next year.

Yes, I did see a mag -4.5 Perseid meteor! a treat. But the hourly rates from my sampling just didn't do it this year. No, I did not last a continuous hour on any night. To do so on any night but the 11th, which found me socked-in, was not in the cards for me. I figured the prelude on the 10th was a great harbinger of things to come. I miss not getting the 11th! Next year. . .

Of course there are the Leonids coming!

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My Perseid updates.

August 10, 2007 10pm mdt:

A few minutes ago, I went outside and watched the northeast, a good dark sky for a few minutes (not more than 7 minutes) and observed 5 Perseid Meteors (!), streaking into the Earth's upper atmosphere from their "radiant" in the constellation Perseus. I had actually gone to bed. I was settling to comfort under the covers(!), shut off the lights and was going to seriously head into sleep, when I glanced out the bedroom window to the northeast and saw without my glasses a flicker of light, a streak, but blurry without my glasses. Had to be a Perseid!

So, I get out of bed!

I sleep as clothed as I was when born, so I donned the big bathrobe, slipped on some slippers, my eyeglasses, and grabbed a flashlight. Outdoors, I slipped (slippered) around the house to a better view of Perseus and Cassiopia. I fought off two mosquitos and let my eyes re-adjust to the darkness.

As I settled my walking to adjust to the moonless sky, the Milky Way was quickly very easily visible. I followed the entire visible galactic edge what our ancestors called the "Way," (Star Way, Highway in the Heavens, the Milky Way) arced as it does in northern hemisphere summer, across the dark sky, easily seeing the starclouds and dust lane splitting the band in Cygnus, scanning quickly southward and southwestward to the billions of stars in the clouds of Ophiuchus, Scorpious and Saggitarius, noting bright Jupiter above the factually huge, bright, billowing Antares, almost seeing the nearby Globular Cluster (M4) mostly because half a century of seeing it lets me see it even though it is on the edge of visibilty for my tired old eyes.

I quickly return my view to the radiant area in Perseus, generally between the head of Perseus and the bottom of Cassiopia's throne, not far from the "double cluster." (A friend read this and said he'd learned Cassiopia different from what this description implies. Cassies head is near the radiant in his version. fine!)

In almost no time, I saw meteors 1 and 2 -- then about a minute or so later, meteors 3, 4, and 5! They were all bright meteors, brighter than Polaris (2nd Magnitude). They showed fairly long traverses, 20 to 40 degrees in the sky. And it looked to me that these were close into the radiant point, so after astronomical midnight the show will get even better.

Okay, go out and look up in a dark sky to the north or northeast. Wait five minutes and count the meteors. Tomorrow night and Sunday night ought to be spectacular! No moon to fight.

Try it if you are in the dark for the next few nights!

Besides being first class fun -- this is how the Science of Astronomy began! Observations. (stars stayed tightly fixed in place, but them the pesky planets moved, and at different speeds)

These are not as bright as I anticipate them to be later in the shower. I always wonder if there are any really big chunks left to make incredible bright displays. If I were at the ISS I'd have a telesopic camera focused on the moon, looking for Perseids splattering and impacting on the Moon making recordable flashes. But that is hard to do from Earth's surface, (watch the Moon get hit by Perseids (this year), since the Moon is only easily visible when the sky lightens up near dawn.) I only hope we get pounded! this year, with a rate of thousands per hour, and bright large bits the size of gravel. (But not with 100 foot chunks of the old swift-tuttle comet!)

Go out and look!

Good evening or good morning!

BTW, the Earth should be passing through the old comet's dust trail orbit at least through Aug 14, peak shower is predicted to be on the 12th or 13th.
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Above: A Perseid fireball photographed August 12, 2006, by Pierre Martin of Arnprior, Ontario, Canada. (From NASA's site, so "git up" (arise from bed) early Monday (Aug 13th) morning or watch all night - - best from midnight on to dawn but LUCK!!! helps. Meaning it is all physics, but we do not know exactly where the densest part of the dust orbits or when we, aboard Earth, will pass through it . . .

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Okay. Okay. I edited this posting. Sharpening in words what I observed. I was focusing on the Perseids and not much else. When I was a child, a youngster, I recorded, as kids with an interest in science do -- what I saw. Articulate science kids can't help it. They record their observations. Not only astronomy, but fossils, insects, minerals, and for me -- I made homemade rocket fuel, as well as black powder, and built and launched and recorded the performance of hundreds of homemade rockets -- with the goal of improving the fuel I was making.

The rocket logs are also in my buried stuff, somewhere.

But the meteors from Swift-Tuttle, the Perseids; made me think of one night, in 1962, or 1963,the date of which is still in my observational log, packed away somewhere. So I can't nail the month now . . .when I was not looking for a meteor shower but telescopically observing Jupiter.

The field of view of my scope was a little over 40 minutes of arc (2/3 of a degree) and in that field of view, dozens, then hundreds of telecopic meteors appeared, mostly 9th to 11th magnitude -- way below what you could see naked eye. I swung and pointed the telescope 20 degrees or more away from the field with Jupiter in it -- to a completely different area of sky (I think it was autumn and I was looking into very sparse areas of the sky --away from the starfields of the Milky Way, out of the galactic plane.)

Imagine thousands of tiny sparkler meteors, blanketing the entire sky, and you can't see any of them without a telescope! I did not then yet possess binoculars, but they would have shown some of the telescopic meteors. I was using a 3-inch reflector! Thousands, billions of tiny dust or ice particles were creating the telescopic phenomena I was seeing. I recorded and moved on . . . But now. . .? Now I'd like to compare my record of date to the plethora of information posted to the web. Have any of you experienced telescopic meteors like I described.?

I might take out one of my scopes and watch and area near the radiant for a time a few minutes and see if I can pick up the smaller dust grains from Swift-Tuttle . . . I'll let you know, in a post added here to this one if I do and if I see any!

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AUG 12, 2007 -- 4:15-4:45 am (Sunday morning) BUMMER!!!

It had been totally cloudy when I retired. Early, one dog woke me(at 4:10 am), insisted I let her out; all 4 dogs went out the back door to the fenced half-acre to do their thing. I could see it was cloudy; not thick, not completely; so there should be opportunitiues to see a few Perseids, even with the clouds!

Lots of owls "hoot-hooting" at each other in trees scattered in and around the yard. I slipper-on footwear, and get my eyeglasses on and the heavy robe, and no flashlight. I slip the 10X50's (bino's,) strap around my neck (where are the 7x50's??) and I note the air temp outside is a nice 50 degree F. If I chill, I'll come back in. As warm as I felt I could last easily 30 minutes or more. If there was something to see!

By this time of morning the constellation Perseus is zenithal and so you do not have to look northeast. You can look pretty much over head, and north and any direction and short distance from the zenith, though the clouds I am looking through and seeing gaps in finally open up for a not too fuzzy dimmed view of Cassiopia, and the whole of Cygnus and the Milky Way straddles the sky with the Way diving behind mountains to the west northwest. (Lyra, Vega nicely visible, but dimmed through clouds.)

Okay. Finally. I have watched the holes in the clouds within 45 degrees of the radiant (a radiant I can't see hidden in the clouds, but I know where it is,) and I see ONE bright 2nd magnitude Perseid. Just ONE in about 15-16 minutes of watching. Bummer! Given the clouds and the holes I was observing -- I probably missed 2 or 3 meteors that were not visible to me because of clouds. Oh well.

I slip the eyeglasses into a pocket of the robe and lean back against one of the vehicles I'm standing among and raise the 10x50's. The Pleiades has been mostly fuzzed and gone in the clouds, but is suddenly ultra-visible, it's brilliant, blue-white diamond crystal remarkable -- and there is NO turbulence. Also, no telescopic meteors anywhere in the binocular field (7 degree diameter field) But I am not steady enough and need a couple more inches objective to be sure there are none I can see.

The sky impresses me even with the clouds. I'm just over 7500 feet elevation, in a rural dark area and the main hope I have is for tomorrow morning (Monday morning) and if it promises to be clear, I'll get one of my four inch refractors out and set up.

Over the period of time when quality meteor records have been kept, most years the Perseids have produced ~ 100 meteors an hour. Some of the most delightfully witnessed visual Perseid Fireballs have appeared at negative magnitudes. Many reach zero magnitude, but it looks like the orbit of the dust stream has drifted in space and the Earth is not passing through a thicker part of the tubular volume as it has on some other years. Mars hangs in the sky as a tiny (7.5 seconds diameter pinpoint in binoculars, in Taurus) between smoldering Aldebaran (the Bull's eye) and the Pleiades!

From the little time I observed it looks like directly 8 per hour in a broken cloudy sky, but is probably in a clear sky more like 40-60 per hour down to naked eye limit. But so far with clouds here where I am -- bummer!

Maybe tomorrow morning!

Hope springs!
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====Update 8-12-07; 9:07 MDT

If the sky was not cloudy after it had rained for several hours, with the humidity and promise of really heavy humidity in the form of rain drops, I would have got the 4-inch refractors out. I have a neat little 40 lb scope with two 4inch objectives and a single eyepiece which you can use to look through either objective. There is a flip mirror and a graticule and one scope is half the magnification of the other (shorter focal length) but it is a great little tool. The lower magnification is about 25X and the higher, about 50X. The images are erect so there is also light loss through more glass and the mirror interposed when at the lower power. I decide not to expose it to the elements. Too much hassle, I'll wear the binocs if I go out again. Got to be something to see! That is, not many clouds.

If I make it out side around midnight and there is enough sky to see and count meteors in the 20 or so range, I'll be quite pleased! I hope it is much higher then that!

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8-13-07 1:20 -- 1:25 am.MDT, I looked at the area of the sky where there should be lots of meteors, out the bedroom window, 20 to 60 degrees from the radiant. I saw nothing, but it was a short time. I went back to sleep, figuring I'd up at 4 am or so.

8-13-07, 4:15 to 4:40. Them night mosquitoes are blood-thirsty vicious little blood-sucking survivors doing well at 54 degrees F. Some are carrying my blood away in the dark. Most aren't, but they were a major distraction.

Perseids: Well, yes and no. The sky was clear the humidity high and this time there was major atmospheric turbulence. Twinkle twinkle and all that terrible stuff. Even Mars flickered.

Yes. I have been spoiled. Otherwise a beautiful half-sphere of darkness, with mosquitoes.

Perseids? Well only three between mosquitoes.

One was worth the watch! It was at least -4.5 mag and traversed a good 65 degrees before vanishing beyond the mountains in the direction of Pueblo. Its train lasted about a second. Was it worth it? Yes! It was. -4.5 is the brightest I have ever seen for the Perseids!

Even though I have seen several non-shower related meteors brighter than the full moon, like -16 or brighter, if you see something streaking across the sky brighter than Venus That is worth seeing. Then again, and after all, more than 50 years of looking at the sky yields many opportunities to see remarkable apparitions.

I spent quite a bit of time looking for an all sky camera on line that would show the bright meteor I saw. So far, no luck. I'll continue, and let you know if I find a site with the image of the one bright one I saw.

I'll look again late tonight! Early tomorrow.

So far, my Perseid score disappoints me.

There is always tomorrow!

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Well, tomorrow was a bummer, too.

8-14, 2:31 - 2:58

No kidding. 2 non- Perseids.

ONE, just one, 4th magnitude Perseid. That is faint for this shower.

Next year? Of course I'll look. I might even continue through the week, now, this week. If I see some notable ones, I'll post here.
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Especially if you are a writer!

Now.

I have recently been doing some research. I will soon have something to post of interest. I will make it a new byte, since it really has nothing to do with my observations here.
But If you have read the observations this far, I promise, you will be interested. ---les

Oh yes!
Clear Skies to you!