A friend and I drove over 200 miles round trip last night to take some Perseids photos.
The Moon was a real problem, but I ended up getting a few nice shots.
Here are two of the better ones:
And here is me, doing my best Luke Skywalker impression:
A couple of nights before the peak, I saw the brightest shooting star I’ve seen since one in summer 2010. It was beautiful, and yeah, I made a wish.
Otherwise, we’ve had too much cloud cover, which is a pity. I live in a nice dark spot, and can usually enjoy the evening sky.
Great shots! I stood outside for a bit with my head looking upwards but I didn’t see any. Shame because it was a very clear night with a great view. The moon was super bright, wasn’t it?
I was going to start a thread about this: “What I’ve learned about Meteor Showers”
Out at our viewing site (around 24 miles E. of Gila Bend), the Moon was bright enough to throw distinct shadows. We didn’t need flashlights to set up our table and eat dinner. The Moon didn’t set until 1:20, so we had four hours to kill…
Thursday night (Friday morning) we went out around 1:30AM. There’s a lot of light pollution here and a little haze but we saw about a dozen in less than a hour. Most were brief and faint but we caught two very nice ones, long and bright.
ETA: Rain and clouds since then. Maybe we’ll get another chance tonight.
I can’t say we drove 200 miles to see it but I did get two 8 year old boys up at 4AM to walk outside and lie down on the driveway. So that’s pretty equivalent, right 
Even with the light pollution (suburban Southern California), we saw about a dozen overall with three or four of them being absolute monsters. Brightest ones I’ve ever seen for sure.
It was well worth it.
nice photos, thank you for sharing.
I didn’t even try to look for them at their peak, but I still caught a glimpse. I was on a road-trip last week, returning home from a convention with some friends. It was late in the night, on a deserted stretch of highway about halfway to anywhere. I was singing softly to myself to stay awake when a pair of bright streaks of light flashed across the sky, seemingly from right above me.
Even if the others had been awake, there wouldn’t have been time to call their attention to the sight, so I just kept driving and singing…but the songs were maybe a little less melancholy than they had been before.
Watching astronomical events, in principle, sounds like it should be so cool. In practice, however, it’s sometimes a little underwhelming. The term ‘meteor shower’, for instance, suggests it’s an event that features fire raining down from the heavens, but instead turns out to be a small flick of light lasting a brief moment spaced minutes apart.
When I was a lad my father woke me up late once to watch a meteor shower. He seemed quite excited about the prospect. Afterwards, I recall feeling guilty that I was not as appreciative of the spectacle as he seemed to be. Fast forward to adulthood…now I’m the parent waking up my son so he can watch the meteor shower. His yawning reaction (yawn yep, I saw that…no, I missed it…yep, I saw that…can I go back to bed now?) confirmed my own childhood impressions.
I know. I know. Pearls before swine and all.
Where I went (deep desert as well like the OP) it was still hot at midnight! And I didn’t see a single living thing, save for some scorpions (LOTS of scorpions. Big-assed ones!). No coyotes, no foxes, no mountain lions. (Did see a border patrol agent at 4:00 am - I guess he was living…).
I only got one good photo of the meteors, though. 'Tis true - they never are as impressive in reality as you’d expect. Best meteor I ever saw was in the mid day, and that was a fluke that I happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time.
As a little kid I heard of a meteor shower upcoming and planned to wake up in the middle of the night to see it. My plan had a few holes in it, mainly that I didn’t have an alarm clock or any other way to wake up. Instead I had a marvelous dream about seeing a meteor shower that far exceeded the reality of such a thing. It was many years before I got outside to see a decent shower, and it was a bit disappointing. Light pollution makes it quite difficult now. As a kid we would go camp out in the summer under the stars. In the dark of night you could see far more stars than you can now without going out far from civilization. The Milky Way was easily discernable on the horizon, there were stars everywhere like the freckles on a redhead after a day at the beach. Once in a rare while we’d see a falling star. Even the brief ones left a clear bright trail. Now it’s hard to make out all but the brightest stars that form the constellations.
Then there was the time a meteor hit my car, but that’s another story.
Drove an hour and a half to a local ski resort, paid $22 each for my wife and I to ride the gondola to the top of a mountain, felt the temperature drop from about 75 to 50 in 10 minutes when the sun went down and saw nothing because the moon was so bright. Did get some nice pictures of the sun setting though.
Around 1 AM last Thursday I saw a few out my window after looking for 10 minutes or so. Should have went outside but I needed sleep.
Nope. I even went out with a butterfly net, but I didn’t catch a single meteor.
We have had fog every night.
Well duh? Would you go fishing with a butterfly net? You need a net with a much longer handle.
So I needed a meatier net?
Yes! Went out around 2am with a bed roll and lay in the darkest part of the garden for about an hour. Absolutely clear night (south coast of England), and once again the neighbour’s cat joined me in the bedroll. (He came over last year, too.)
Saw a little over a dozen, couple of rather large ones, and went in when both the cat and I were fed up with the slugs crawling into the bedroll to snuggle up for warmth (it was maybe 11 or 12 deg, so a bit chilly when you’re just lying still).
Ahhhh… That’s cute.
Disgusting, but cute.