(meteorobs) Geminids From New Zealand.

[belatrix]

Intriguing! they must of petered slightly over the Tasman!

  I observed from 14:10 - 15:55 14th UT, same as you casually, no 
written notes, to image the possible aurora.
  I had cloud problems along all horizons, to varying degree's, but 
mostly to my south. But for about 95% of the time, but I had ~ 60% 
cloud free skies, but with some very thin high cloud above the large 
stable hole, reducing ZLM to somewhere around 6 for me in the clear 
zone, but still with good transparency above at times. Site @ around 
400 meters.
  A close nearby small country town was a small problem with lights, not 
huge, and many large gum tree's were both a blessing and a curse.

I, very roughly, counted around 20 or so (out of 30 or so meteors 
total) that were probably GEM's, during the 01:45 h TEFF, the majority 
of them heading to most points South. I counted about 9 or 10 of the 
GEM's that were in the bright, 0 to - 2 mag area, and travelled decent 
distances with very short wakes.
I left a bit after the moon rose. Could tell that it would of been a 
great show, viewed in perfect conditions from a pristine dark site, for 
sure - but I did give the clear parts of the sky my full attention.


Cheers
Kearn
Adelaide, Australia
~35 south

On 17/12/2006, at 10:43 PM, Graham Palmer wrote:

> Hi all. I was out aurora watching over the past few nights, and saw a 
> good number of meteors.
> The first and best night was the 14th. I observed from about 0930 till 
> 1400 UTC. During that period I must have seen about 700 meteors, many 
> of them in the south near Pavo at the anti-Geminid point. This would 
> give an hourly rate of just under 120, or about two per minute. It was 
> a great show.
>
> There were also about a dozen meteors from the radiant in Monoceros, 
> and 20-30 sporadics.
>
> The 15th was a much quieter night for the Geminids, with the hourly 
> rate dropping down to about 10.
>
> Sorry the data wasn't taken with greater accuracy, but I was really 
> there for the auroras... (they were worth watching too!)
>
>
> Graham Palmer
> Hastings, New Zealand
> 06-8735138
> 021-2650487
> My Image Website: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/SkyHighPhotography