The sky was full of meteors!
Chris L Peterson
year. Last night my video allsky camera recorded 298 meteors, of which
at least 232 were Geminids. It caught a total of 419 Geminids over the
last four nights. Although the camera is only sensitive to magnitude 1,
it recorded a peak rate of 50 meteors per hour at 4am local this morning
(UT 11:00 14 December). I went out a few times during the night and
always saw many events, typically two or three per minute.
I've posted a composite image and many fireball videos at
http://www.cloudbait.com/science/geminid2009.html
_________________________________________________
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
Nightcrawler
"Chris L Peterson" <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:lutci5dvpjgocc5t0...@4ax.com...
Lucky bastage.
BradGuth
> The Geminids put on a very impressive performance over Colorado this
> year. Last night my video allsky camera recorded 298 meteors, of which
> at least 232 were Geminids. It caught a total of 419 Geminids over the
> last four nights. Although the camera is only sensitive to magnitude 1,
> it recorded a peak rate of 50 meteors per hour at 4am local this morning
> (UT 11:00 14 December). I went out a few times during the night and
> always saw many events, typically two or three per minute.
>
> _________________________________________________
>
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatoryhttp://www.cloudbait.com
That's way better than anything our NASA has to offer.
~ BG
uncarollo
> I've posted a composite image and many fireball videos at
http://www.cloudbait.com/science/geminid2009.html
Impressive!! Love it.
Rolando
AM
Yes, no question !
I only saw 12 from 5:18 - 5:56 am EST
But then I'm under mag 4.0 skies at best, with
massive lighting 300m away in the park. (tho was
able to shield myself from them somewhat)
The brightest emanated from Castor's foot to
almost the ground, very bright. One went from
N to S just west of Mars.
All the rest emanated from the Leo area, and streaked
ESE above Corvus and Crater, with one exception
which sailed right past Saturn heading east.
Thanx Chris.
--
AM
Carl Ampo
number of ones you recorded. Are you sure you're not confusing data with a
prior shower?
"Chris L Peterson" <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote in message
news:lutci5dvpjgocc5t0...@4ax.com...
Chris L Peterson
>This must be an error. No reports show anything even remotely close to the
>number of ones you recorded. Are you sure you're not confusing data with a
>prior shower?
No chance of such confusion. A peak rate of 50 meteors per hour brighter
than magnitude 1 (which is what I recorded) is reasonably consistent
with a peak visual rate of 150 meteors per hour (which is what the IMO
reported).
Chris L Peterson
>The brightest emanated from Castor's foot to
>almost the ground, very bright. One went from
>N to S just west of Mars.
The composite I posted has an interesting feature: Pollux is just bright
enough to show a faint trail. Since it is only a few degrees from the
Geminid radiant, you can use its position on the image to tell
approximately when any individual meteor occurred. You just need to
follow the path of a meteor backwards until it intersects the trail of
Pollux. If the intersection is towards the east the meteor was early in
the evening; towards the west it was approaching dawn.
canopus56
Carl, Chris's numbers are consistent with radio meteor observing,
although radio observing sees fainter.
http://217.169.242.217/rmob/pages/liveradiometeorpage.php
The IMO preliminary visual count -
http://www.imo.net/live/geminids2009/
Clear Skies - Canopus56
AM
Cool, I'll give it a try.
You don't have a larger sized ver of that image ?
TIA
Chris L Peterson
>You don't have a larger sized ver of that image ?
No, that's the native size of the image from the camera. For some
purposes I resample the image to a larger size using Photoshop.
Technically, that's empty magnification (not adding any new
information), but sometimes it makes the images easier to work with.
Frank Warner
Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
I am fascinated by meteor showers but am just learning about them. What
do these terms mean?
> There are currently several active meteor showers. Removed from this
> composite were 33 Puppid-Velids, 46 Monocerotids, 12 Chi Orionids, 53
> Sigma Hydrids, and 78 sporadics.
-Frank
--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/
Chris L Peterson
<war...@verizonDOTnet.net> wrote:
>I am fascinated by meteor showers but am just learning about them. What
>do these terms mean?
Meteor showers are named for the part of the sky they appear to radiate
from. That's usually just the name of the constellation (e.g. the
Geminids have their radiant in Gemini), but in some cases there is more
than one shower during the year with a radiant in a given constellation.
In that case, the name is modified: the Orionids are a major shower, so
the minor December shower in Orion is called the Chi Orionids, because
the radiant is in the northern part of the constellation, near the star
Chi Orion.
Frank Warner
Peterson <c...@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:55:55 -0800, Frank Warner
> <war...@verizonDOTnet.net> wrote:
>
> >I am fascinated by meteor showers but am just learning about them. What
> >do these terms mean?
>
> Meteor showers are named for the part of the sky they appear to radiate
> from. That's usually just the name of the constellation (e.g. the
> Geminids have their radiant in Gemini), but in some cases there is more
> than one shower during the year with a radiant in a given constellation.
> In that case, the name is modified: the Orionids are a major shower, so
> the minor December shower in Orion is called the Chi Orionids, because
> the radiant is in the northern part of the constellation, near the star
> Chi Orion.
Thank you.