Meteors? Not Very Many.

 Pleasant Observing Conditions

During the night of May 30-31 Earth's orbital motion brought our planet through debris from the breakup of comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann3. Experts predicted a meteor shower caused by comet fragments burning up in our atmosphere. Shower intensity was uncertain. Predictions ranged from only a few meteors per hour to a thousand per hour meteor storm. A true meteor storm is not to be missed! When clear moonless conditions were present for the event, I made sure to watch.

The sky was slightly hazy and neighborhood light pollution was almost minimum. Observing conditions were about as comfortable as possible! Mosquitos were blown away by a slight breeze, and temperature hovered in the low 70's. I scanned near the dark zenith from a comfortable lounge chair. There were no visible meteors during my first attempt at about 10:00 pm. At 11:30 pm I tried again only to be frustrated by a neighbor's glaring light. Maximum intensity was predicted to occur at about 1:00 am, so I made one last attempt then. During the next 50 minutes or so I saw only 7 Tau Herculid meteors from comet debris. Only one of these was relatively bright. The other six were dim and unspectacular.

Hazy light polluted sky together with my age diminished eyesight probably made some dim meteors impossible to see. I wondered if a camera would capture some, so I set up a tripod mounted phone camera to take a few 10-second exposures. One image did capture a dim meteor at 1:59:43 am EDT on May 31. Can you see it below? It's near top center above the constellation Scorpius.

Another 10-second exposure captured a bit of the Milky Way and the constellation Sagittarius at 2:05 am.

Seven meteors in an hour is certainly not a meteor storm! This Tau Herculid meteor event ranks pretty low compared with others I've seen over the years. For example, I've twice seen 67 meteors in an hour during December's Geminid Meteor Shower. I saw 118 Leonid meteors from 3:47 to 5:00 am on November 17, 1998 while observing from a field in Forest, VA. The most spectacular meteor night I've ever seen was the Leonid Meteor Shower on the morning of November 19, 2002. Observing from the Ivy Hill Golf Course in Forest, VA I saw 293(!) meteors from 4:54 to 6:07 am. This is about one meteor every 15 seconds on average! It's probably safe to say this 2002 Leonid event will be the best meteor shower I'll ever see in my lifetime!