(meteorobs) Re: TSP and meteors

Wed May 26 14:16:50 EDT 2004

Lew, it was a great event, and I wanted you to know that Saturday night I saw some wonderful meteors.
Thanks for the views through the 36".  Especially the "visually stunning" Shak clusters.
Hope you guys come back!  I don't recall a previous TSP that had 3 36" scopes on the field.
I still think the AINTNO object is safe from prying eyes...:) Thank you for the kind words, I really enjoyed observing with you.
Barbara Wilson
TSP Guest Speaker Chairperson

I just pulled in at 2am last night, from an 11-day driving and observing
Odyssey to the Texas Star Party in Ft. Davis, West Texas USA... We had
been hauling a 36" f/5 dob co-owned by several of us, together with
several smaller dobs and equipment. It was an incredible event, and I
have MOUNDS of deep-sky observations to try to enter into the IAAC - as
well as (yes, folks) a ONE-HOUR meteor observing session last Monday
night... (Talk about Deep Sky Guilt!)

With our own 36", we observed 6 Abell galaxy clusters, 5 Hickson galaxy
groups, 4 Arp galaxies, 3 Shakhbazian galaxy chains, several Terzan and
Tonantzintla globular clusters, 3 planetary nebulae in M7, and that
planetary in M22 (plus tons of NGC and Messier objects beyond
description - some of my co-owners love the bright stuff!). With our
other scopes, we also saw the ejecta field of lunar crater Aristarchus
illuminated by EARTHSHINE, and the ion  tail, hoods and inner coma of
one very fine comet! With the OTHER two 36" f/5 scopes at TSP, we
(purportedly!) observed a particularly thorny item from the "aint no"
list, among some other very fine sights...

With the unaided eye, I got nice impressions of Comet NEAT, the Zodiacal
Light (like a New York City skyglow), Gegenschein, Zodiacal Band, the
Ophiuchus arm of the Milky Way, 17 Messier objects - and about 22
meteors in 1 hour of Teff with LM=7.3. (This latter was during a couple
of hours of poor transparency one night.)

I hope others will keep prompting and encouraging me to get all these
observations entered into IAAC and meteorobs properly - I am awfully
tired from the 5000 mile round-trip, but I would love to share these
wonders with you all soon!

PS: A special thank you to Barbara Wilson for being such a welcoming
presence, and for her inspiration to us all to observe more and deeper!

Clear skies all!
Lew Gramer

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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 18:10:24 -0400
From: "Lewis J. Gramer" <lgramer at upstream.net>
Subject: (meteorobs) Fwd: September 27,2003 : Juganatha Fireball Event
To: <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Message-ID: <0d7f01c442a5$17607150$9101a8c0 at upstreambos.com>

Note: Bharat Adur is now a member of 'meteorobs'. Sorry for
any problems you may have had posting to our list, Dr. Adur!

Welcome, and clear skies over New Delhi!
Lew Gramer <owner-meteorobs at meteorobs.org>

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 6:41 AM
To: 'owner-meteorobs at meteorobs.org'
Subject: September 27,2003 : Juganatha Fireball Event

Orissa event known as "Juganath Meteorite" has been one of most
spectacular event in the Indian subcontinent since last which hit Orissa
in the last century.

We were a team which had reached Orissa just Meteoric hit, this
event happened around 18:30 hours local time (13:00 UT). The description
of this event is as follows:" .... around 18:30 hours the eastern sky
was so brightly lit it was like a local afternoon the brightness was so
strong that many rushed indoors. Over few hubdreds of thousands were
witness to this spectacular FIREBALL event. The luminous ball was bluish
white, crackling and making a lot of noise intial people thought that it
could have some rocket which was being tested nearby site. But that was
not the case. it was truly a a great fireball event of the century..
"said Inspector of Police at Baripada.

The area where this fireball must have burst forth, has covered
over 8 districts, measuring an area of about 14 to 15 thousand square
kilometers. We visited the site wherein the meteorite passed over a hut
in Sudsudia, Kaptipada, the roof of the hut was totally burnt and we
were able to recover some residue of the meteor. On further
investigation we also heard that where the meteor fell in nearby pond,
and this water in the pond was boiling. We were able to recover more
meteoric residue along with burnt ashes of the roof. We covered nearly 4
district and were able to see meteorite samples from 3 districts, and
did recover the meteorite samples from Purab Suniti, Kenrapara district.

The results of 'Juganatha meteorite' is in Publication with
"CURRENT SCIENCE".
We are now trying to determine the orbit parameters based on
meteorite impact craters formed in Paschim Suniti, Purab Suniti, Jubna
all in Mahakalpada region we had seen more than 4 craters in this
region, the largest meteoric crater "Balbhadra crater" was the largest.
the region where there several craters formed is in the paddy fields
many of them have been washed away.
However we are looking for satellite data over India on that day, this
might help in determining the actual brightness magntude for this event.
Brian Marsden ruled out that Near Earth Asteroid 2003SQ222 which came
close to Earth, 10 hours prior to this event. But the event was of
larger magnitude then the Tagish Lake in Canada.

The work is still in progress any other details ca be provided.you can
discuss this further bharatadur at rediffmail.com

Bharat Adur

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