(meteorobs) Geminids spectacular from Slovenia !!

[Jure Atanackov]

Hi!

Finally, all the variables were right: peak time, moon phase, radiant
culmination time and very clear skies. I observed from a nearby hill Tinjan for
only 1.5h teff, as I am sick and taking antibiotics. I wish I'd been somewhere
very dark. Other parts of the country were blanketed by low clouds so up in the
mountains in was very clear and very dark. Javor went somewhere high, so I'm
quite envious. 

Geminids? WOW! I thought 1999 was big, but this was bigger! In 1.5h teff I
recorded 281 meteors, of these 253 Geminids. Hourly rate during the first hour
was 179 GEM/h! The best meteor appeared at 22:54, a green -3m Geminid close to
the radiant with a beautiful 5 second train that was immediately distorted by
high altitude winds! Another -3m Geminid appeared later in the session. My
brother also saw a -4 or -5 Geminid in the north, opposite direction to where I
was facing. It was really unfortunate that I wasn't able to observe the entire
night, but I'm happy to have seen as much as I have. 
The summary:

Period		F	teff	LM	GEM  MON  HYD  XOR  COM  Spor
22:48-23:48UT	1.00	1.00	6.48	179   2    1    1    0	   8
23:48-00:18UT	1.00	0.50	6.48	 74   0    0    1    1    14

Magnitude distribution:
GEM: -3(2) -2(3) -1(13)  0(20) +1(31) +2(61) +3(61) +4(44) +5(16) +6(2)
XOR: +3(2)
MON: +2(1) +4(1)
HYD: +3(1)
COM: +3(1)
Spor:  0(1) +1(3) +2(5) +3(5) +4(7) +5(1)

Clear skies!
Jure A.

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