Earth is entering a stream of debris from giant comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, parent of the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Although the shower is not expected to peak until next weekend, NASA all-sky cameras are already detecting dozens of Perseid fireballs every night over the USA.
This early activity may be a good omen for the nights ahead, especially Aug. 11th-13th when Earth is expected to pass through the densest part of the comet's debris zone.
Visit Spaceweather.com for more information and observing tips.



It looks like a new record for a 144 MHz Meteor Scatter contact was set by Fernando EA8TX and Dieter DJ6AG on August 6, 2018

The contact would appear to be a combination of Meteor Scatter and Tropospheric propagation.

EA8TX was in grid square IL18qi and DJ6AG in JO51eq giving a distance of 3428 km. This exceeds by 51 km the previous record between EA8TJ and S50C.

Just as the clouds return...

Was cloudless early this morning, just about 3:00, saw Pleiades rising.... here comes winter.

Phil - G7BZD

I used to own a small reflector, and then started to wonder why British Astronomers managed to be at the forefront of the science when they hardly ever saw the sky.

They could have saved a fortune on 'The Sky at Night', by just showing an orangey-grey rectangle.

The British Astronomical Association (BAA) report the Perseids meteor shower will peak this weekend

With the generally fine, clear weather that we have been experiencing across much of the British Isles, observers are reporting increasing Perseid meteor activity. The Perseids are one of the most reliable showers of the year, producing an abundance of fast, bright meteors, many with persistent trains.

The three nights of Saturday night to Sunday morning (August 11-12), Sunday night to Monday morning (August 12-13) and Monday night to Tuesday morning (August 13-14) should all be highly productive for observers in the British Isles.

Observers watching after 2100h UT on August 12-13 should experience increasing activity towards midnight and in the pre-dawn hours of August 13, as the shower radiant at RA 03h 11m, Dec. +58° (near the Double Cluster, on the Perseus-Cassiopeia border) climbs higher in the eastern sky. Activity should be starting to decline by the time darkness falls on Aug 13-14.

its been a pale shadow of its former self for a good few years as far as relections on 144Mhz are concerned.

It used to be a fantastic shower,with very long loud bursts in abundance,but I reckon for the last few years its not been a lot better than some of the minor showers,lets hope this year its back to its old self.

+1

I cut my teeth on 2m MS during the Perseids, agree that the past few years have been poor - still usable but not very long reflections, used to get 30sec periods for hours in the past. Let's see what this year brings.

You may be able to see around 60 meteors an hour during the peak.
You can also catch glimpses of the Perseid meteors until the last week of August.

Check out the ON4KST.info 50/70 and 144 MHz chats to see where the activity is and look upwards for shooting stars if you have dark skies.

This is what I used when I was active on VHF for meteor scatter:
http://www.sgo.fi/Data/RealTime/meteorRadar.php

I saw a few beauties at 0300local this morning

I imagine you could.
I forgot all about it as an event, till standing out on the back step for a quick late night fag, as you have to in chez moi, and the first obvious one happened to catch my eye, followed by at least 10 within short the time I stood there.
Fortunately we had clear skies, and being in a village stuck out in rural Shropshire, we don't suffer massive light pollution.
Our one nearest street lamp, is a bit of a glow worm, fortunately.
I spared a thought for those trying to work MS hoping they had similar.

There are some pretty big reflections about already,I just completed with IW4ARD on 144Mhz in next to no time,this morning I copped a 30 second reflection from SM0EJY while he was working G8JLY

Hopefully it will continue along these lines

Hot off the press from the Daily Viz:

Well can't say I stayed the course, to watch it in full, having only caught it by accident, but saw a few brief streaks of light, in part thanks to our still in the dark ages local nigh time lack of typical these day's artificial daylight, as in "keep the night as bright as the day" street lighting infrastructure!
I agree on the stiff neck bit though, as I have got older I do suffer the odd painfull neck twinges syndrome far more than I did in my youth, even turning my head in the car for that out of the back or side window quarter glance, is often enough to make me wince!