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Details:
From a dark-sky location I watched the meteor shower May 30th from 11:15pm-12:15am MDT studiously and from 1:15am-1:45am more lackadasically and saw 6 Herculids in the first 20 minutes, 4 in the next 40 minutes, and 2 more in the later half hour. All but one were inside a 45° radius of the radiant, moving slowly for short distances (1-2°), with magnitudes 2-4. The exception fell through Scorpius towards the ground at about magnitude 1.5 and had a noticeably longer trail, but it could be backtracked to the radiant too.
In total I saw 18 meteors: 12 Herculids and 6 sporadics. The latter were generally brighter, faster, and longer. 3 of those appeared to be traveling together tracing similar paths through Leo within the same minute, and another had the same characteristics but arced in the opposite direction. It made me wonder whether there was another minor shower underway.
So while there was no meteor storm, there were certainly some meteors that fulfilled predictions. So many short, quick meteors reminded me more of fireworks than shooting stars.
Timelapse photos yielded a somewhat different distribution of meteors during the same time frame. 9 meteors were recorded, all similar, but only 6 trace back to the radiant. There were also copious satellites moving around. The edge of the Earth's shadow at the satellites' height must have resided just south of Arcturus because several satellites appeared in my subframes from nowhere in that location.
Image info:
#1: The sky centered on Arcturus with the Coma star cluster on the right. Meteors are marked with arrows.
#2: Added constellation shapes.
#3: Each meteor's path is extended across the frame to locate the radiant.
#4: Added star and constellation names.
Photo data:
-- Panasonic G9, Rokinon 12mm, timelapse of ~2 hrs at (f/2, 60 sec, ISO 1600), star tracker.
-- 9 frames containing meteors combined with "maximum" blending in DeepSkyStacker and processed in Paint Shop Pro X2 (trails are brightened to make them more visible).
-- N up, W right. FOV = 72° x 57°.
-- Date: May 30-31, 2022 11:15pm-1:15am MDT (May 31, 5:15-7:15 UT).
Photographer's website:
No URL provided.
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