The following is a blog report about the Twitter Meteorwatch, written by Adrian West of Newbury Astronomical Society:

The Perseid Meteorwatch has now come to a close, the Astrobunker is locked, and all involved have been able to catch up on some much needed sleep.

On the evenings of the 11th and 12th of August 2009 a truly phenomenal event took place with thousands of Twitter users joining in with a worldwide Meteorwatch.

The event was intended to be fun and a way for people to join in and experience astronomy first hand by watching the Perseid meteor shower and other objects visible during the evening.  People posted comments about what they were seeing and hoping to see, questions and answers, links to more information, pictures and video clips.  The huge variety of contributions by so many people was what made Meteorwatch successful beyond our wildest expectations.

Meteorwatch started at 9.30 pm BST in the UK with @NewburyAS tweeting from the “Astrobunker”.  In the finest English tradition the Meteorwatch ‘mission control’ was a garden shed in rural Berkshire.  NewburyAS joined forces with @astronomy2009uk in Scotland, @philipstobbart in Northern England, @KSAstro in the US and many others worldwide who actively contributed to the event.

Because of all the hard work put in beforehand #Meteorwatch already had an impressive number of people following us and waiting for it to start.  Tweets began to pour in and many images and snippets of information were posted within a very short time. After the first hour, the volume of people following the event was off the scale. The Newbury Astronomical Society blog received over 3000 hits in the first hour, and images posted to twitpic were being visited in droves.

People all round the world were prompted to go outside and look at the sky, perhaps with friends, family or just on their own, and to see meteors for the first time.  In a sense what we were doing was virtual sidewalk astronomy.

There were thousands of messages posted by people of all ages and from all walks of life.  They tweeted questions, described their own experiences and told us how much they were enjoying the event.   There were many enquiries about taking up astronomy as a hobby – some people were just inquisitive, some were frustrated by the weather, but many were  just delighted at seeing a meteor for the first time.  The overall impression was of a huge good natured party, with entire families or groups of friends crowding around a computer and then rushing outside to see what they could see.

The event attracted a great deal of interest from the media and at one stage there seemed to be almost as many reporters and cameramen as there were astronomers imaging and tweeting at the Astrobunker.  By the end of the first two days Meteorwatch had been reported on by BBC National and local Radio and TV,  ITN News, Sky, Channel 4 and most of the major newspapers.  There were scores of web sites and blogs mentioning and highlighting the event worldwide.

Just after midnight on the first evening the Meteorwatch became the most popular topic on Twitter, with tens of thousands of Twitter users joining in.  On the second evening the event again became one of the top ‘trending’ topics.

Even though, because of the moonlight, the visibility of the Perseids was not particularly good this year, people around the world still joined in and made the #Meteorwatch a huge phenomenon.  Many of them were also hampered by poor weather and light pollution but they still made the effort.  It certainly demonstrated that astronomy can be fun and accessible.

Meteorwatch was organised by Newbury Astronomical Society @NewburyAS and the International Year of Astronomy 2009 UK @astronomy2009uk, with support from @maggiephilbin @KSastro, @Zarquil, @philipstobbart,  @Jodrellbank,  @astronomyblog,  @DrLucyRogers and many more worldwide.  A lot of people put in a lot of effort and it was their contributions that made the event so successful.

Many thanks to all who joined in.