Allsky cameras allow the brighter meteors that occur during annual showers to be recorded. The Southern Delta Aquarid (SDA) shower occurs between July 14 and August 18, with a peak around July 29. The parent body of this shower is unknown. This year I recorded a strong burst of activity on the evening of July 26 (UT 2004.07.27 04:57 to 10:45).

This is a composite image of 16 meteors with a common radiant in Aquarius. I collected an additional five sporadic meteors over the evening that are not seen here. Because the images were collected over about six hours, the radiant is not obvious in the image. Vega was high most of the night, and is seen as a string of points. Venus and Aldebaran rose near the end of the sequence, and only three images of each are visible.

This amount of activity is unusual for this shower, especially given the bright Moon and intermittent cloud cover.