(meteorobs) Observation Nov 8/9 (ATAJU)

[Jure Atanackov]

As Javor has already written, we observed on Nov 8/9, hoping to catch some of
the Taurid acitvity being reported on 'meteorobs'. I operated Jure Z's cameras,
one of them a Nikon D70 which was operating in 'noise reduction' mode: take an 
exposure, then take a dark frame with the same exposure time. I didn't mess with
the settings as I am not familiar with it so it stayed in this mode during
observation. Needless to say, it was a disaster waiting to happen. 

I started at 1 am local under a LM6.7 sky. Rates were good from the start, with
two bright +1. mag NTAs in the first 20 minutes. Fifteen minutes into the
observation, I saw a flash on the southern horizon. My guess is it was a
fireball around -6. magnitude. I finished the hour with 4 NTA, 7 STA and a
whopping 28 sporadics. 14 minutes into the second hour, at 01:11:28UT a
brilliant -8. magnitude STA fireball appeared low in the south. It produced a
bright flash that lit up the southern sky. Strong sporadic rates continued, with
one instance when no less than 6 sporadics appeared in one minute! All was going
fairly well when the disaster I was talking about *did* happen. Boy did it
happen!! At 02:14:12UT a most brilliant Taurid fireball appeared in the north,
taking 4 seconds for a 30 degrees long path, producing four bursts, the
brightests of which I estimated at -10. magnitude, as it lit up the entire sky.
The fireball changed colors from white to yellow to orange to bluegreen and
produced a 4 second train. I was still excited just from seeing it when I
realised it appeared in *dead center* of my camera field!! I quickly scrambled
out of my sleeping bag and to check the camera... only to find it making a dark
frame. Let me just say that my subsequent venting of anger probably produced an
exodus of wildlife within a 1 km radius. And I hate Nikon. I really do. 

The Summary:
Date: November 08/09, 2005
Begin: 23h 57m UT
End: 02h 20m UT
Location: 13o 59' 58" E, 45o 44' 22" N, 550 m
Place: Dolenja vas, Slovenia
Observer: Jure Atanackov (ATAJU)

Period 	 	Teff   F    LM  NTA  STA  Spor
23:57-01:11UT	1.15  1.00 6.65	 4    7	   28
01:11-02:20UT	1.15  1.00 6.66  1    9    26

Magnitude distribution:
NTA:  +1(2) +3(2) +4(1)
STA: -10(1) -8(1) -4(1)  0(3) +1(2) +2(5) +3(1) +4(3)
Spor: -1(1)  0(3) +1(3) +2(8) +3(23) +4(9) +5(6)

Clear skies!
Jure A.

____________________
http://www.email.si/