Kit

You need very little to count meteors properly: a dark place, a reclining chair or mat, warm clothes, a red light and something to write with. The rest is optional.

For counting

• A camping mat and a sleeping bag. Lying flat beats any chair for comfort over three hours.
• A red head torch, dimmed as far as it goes.
• A clipboard with a printed form: time, magnitude, shower or sporadic, notes.
• A star chart to estimate the limiting magnitude at the start of each hour.

For photographs

• Any camera that can take repeated 20–30 second exposures; a wide lens (14–24 mm).
• A small tracking mount if you want sharp stars in long stacks.
• A dew heater strip and a power bank — dew ends more sessions than clouds do.

Why count

Careful visual counts, with observing times and sky quality, are still useful to meteor organisations that work out activity profiles for each shower. They are also a good excuse to lie in a field at three in the morning.