(meteorobs) Observation December 11/12 from Oregon

[Wesley Stone]

The forecast has been doom, gloom and more gloom.  Somehow, I wasn't entirely convinced, and I set a couple of alarms to tell me to look out my window.  At 2:30am, I looked out and saw quite a few stars.  In fact, they were visible all the way down to the western horizon, which meant that it wasn't foggy.  Things looked to be improving, but when I got outside I saw that it was just a succession of sucker patches.  Sometimes, the Winter Milky Way would be incredibly detailed in southern Gemini, hinting at a LM of 7+.  Unfortunately, that would be the only clear area in that part of the sky.  At other times, much of the sky would be clear but hazy, with an LM around 5.  I wasn't about to try to keep track of LM and obstructions, but I did a one-hour casual watch from about 10:50-11:50 UT and saw 15 Geminids and 4 non-Geminids.  All of the GEMs were between magnitudes 0 and 3.

After a hot cocoa break during a cloudy period, I went back out.  Slowly, the sky started to open up, and the cloudiness was less chaotic.  I started an official count at 12:29 UT.  Clouds threatened at times, but never obstructed more than 30% of my FOV.  Sporadic rates were very good for the conditions.  Geminids were slow at times, but overall the rates were OK, especially if I was missing a lot of faint ones.  There weren't any fireballs during the watch, but I did see a dramatic "peachy" -3 South Apex sporadic as I was packing up.  

It's back to overcast in the daytime, but Clear Sky Clock is now predicting observable conditions for Monday morning here.

Observer: Wesley Stone (STOWE)
Location: Chiloquin, OR (42d 35m N, 121d 52m W)
Method: Counting: Watch/Tape recorder
Date: 2004 December 11/12

Interval UT   Teff     F     LM   GEM   Spo
1229-1330     1.00   1.20   6.2    22    12

Magnitude Distribution:

       -1    0     1     2     3     4    Total (Mean)
GEM     3    2     4     3     7     3      22   (1.8)
Spo     -    1     -     4     4     3      12   (2.7)
-- 
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10