(meteorobs) Bright Taurids (3)

[Koen Miskotte]

Hello,
Last weekend I observed with my friends Carl Johannink, Jaap van 't Leven and Selma Koelers the Taurids from Gildehausen in Germany. We stayed at the home of Carl in Gronau. Some short impressions of these nights from myself:

4/5-11-2005.
After the passage of a front the clouds disappeared around 1:00 UT. We observed 'till ~3:30 UT. Nice Taurid activity, but no fireballs. However, some time before our observations, two bright Taurids were seen by DMS observer Sietse Dijkstra (-2 and -5). After official observations I did see a -2 Taurid.

5/6-11-2005.
What a hell of a night!
First clear weather, but after one hour clouds moved in. Taurid rates were fine: ~10 every hour. Just before clouds moved in a nice -2 (not seen by me) and a -4 Taurid appeared. These clouds were very thin, Mars and the brightest stars were visible. I left my 10D (luckily) running and around 23:49 a bright -6 Taurid flashes through my camera field! Nice picture. Later this day on my website.
After 40 minutes clouds disapperead again for about 1,5 hour. And again, just before sky closed a big -8 Taurid appears in Eridanus, some 5 degrees outside my camera field :-(. But what a brilliant Taurid it was!
After this meteor sky closed. We waited for an hour, but finaly we dicided to go home. After taking some pictures of ourselves with the equipment (we had three Canon EOS 10D camera's in the field... and a T90 and a Canon EOS 10) we did see another brilliant -5 Taurid flashing through a clear spell between the clouds.
So, its needless to say that we had a great time!

Clear sky!
Koen