[fringe_dweller]

Thanks for the report Ian - much appreciated in the generally Perseid poor south. Its the one decent shower I/we dont go out to watch, even if its occurs like this time around, in a moon free period. 45, Not a bad overall tally :-) a nice catch for before breakfast! worth staying up/getting out of bed for! Love this sport - dont need to be a millionaire to enjoy it!
Mike, The annual Geminids shower in december is usually the best major shower for southerners these days I'm afraid - the Eta Aquarids have just about disappeared visually, the populations getting too faint possibly? (still not real bad in radio obs) and the leonids have gone back to its old normal levels it appears. And both Gems and Leo's peaks occur during full moons this year :-( Looks like we are down to discovering new 2/hr southern showers for entertainment maybe?
One thing about the radiants of the major northern/equatorial showers being very low in far southern skies, it tends to make the few we do see, more likely to be nice bright earthgrazers - small consolation though?
City observing of meteors is hard, as you know, as the majority of members of shower populations seem to be in the dimmer 3/4-7 mag range, and even much less, so in mag >4.5 inner city skies your really up against it on most occasions. Not to be too discouraging , I have had some half decent sessions in the suburbs sometimes.
Even between a darkish site to a really dark site, we have noticed a large difference in counts ect and impressiveness. At truly dark skies the fainter mag 6's and 7's can even look impressive as well, and mag 4's look like fireballs hehe. :-)
Kearn
PS btw one of my favs these days are the Sagittarids in may (usually while out for eta's) love seeing them smoke and streak magnificently out of the heart of the milky way overhead - very impressive, if a little on the thin side in numbers.