(meteorobs) Geminids From New Zealand.

[belatrix]

Should of added, I saw most of the geminid activity in the first half 
of the observing period, quietened down a lot towards the end, despite 
the radiant getting higher. I finished at 2:25 am local time.
  Read a couple of good reports of high activity seen from the east 
coast of Australia ( which darker half an hour earlier than here) for 
around their local midnight, on a forum I frequent. Even of a possible 
late GEM spectacular earth grazing, terminal disintegrating, fireball 
seen over Victoria, Australia, the following mid-evening (15th), even 
made the local news there apparently (Herald Sun). Its been a good year 
for meteor enthusiasts!

Cheers
Kearn

On 18/12/2006, at 1:20 AM, belatrix wrote:

> 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
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