(meteorobs) Geminids Central Texas Dec 13/14 summary

[Ed Cannon]

Last night I drove somewhat farther from the city than the 
previous night, to about 30.32N, 98.26W, 295m.  The sky was 
very clear.  About 2% obscuration by trees at the periphery.

December 13/14 (Tuesday, December 14 UTC)
Begin 05:30:00 End 08:51:00 UTC (time-keeping by WWV)
Teff= 150 minutes
LM = 5.8 (faintest star)
Geminids 172, Other 26
Best five-minute bin had 11 GEMs.  Three times I saw two 
GEMs at once -- neat!

I'll send the five-minute bins for both nights later.

It was nice to see Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) from darker 
skies than usual.  It looks bigger.  I don't think I could 
quite make it out without my binoculars -- maybe with 
averted vision.

Ed Cannon - ecannon at mail.utexas.edu - Austin, Texas, USA