(meteorobs) Geminids spectacular from Slovenia, Dec 13/14!!!

[Jure Atanackov (via Lew Gramer)]

>Date: Sunday 24 December 2006 16:02

Hello all!

The Geminids again prepared a spectacular show with many, many meteors! We 
enjoyed typical Geminid weather here: fog and low clouds in the lower areas 
and beautiful, crystal clear skies up in the mountains, with the added bonus 
of near-zero light pollution due to the cloud blanket. I observed with a 
group including Jure Z. from Kisovec, a 1300 m high plateau at the southern 
edge of the Alps. I drove up with Jure and two other observers in early 
evening. We first tried to reach a higher observing location, at about 1500 
meters, but the only access road was completely frozen and the steeper 
sections were very slippery, so we gave up and drove down to Kisovec. Better 
safe than sorry! Kisovec plateau is a nice almost flat area about half a 
kilometer or a bit more across, surrounded by mostly spruce forest. The trees 
and field were covered by a thin layer of frozen snow that had fallen only 
several days before.

We then set up in the middle of the field, while Jure set up his photo gear 
(Nikon D70 and F65 and Canon EOS 350D mounted on an EQ6 mount). By the time I 
started, the other group had also arrived. Overall, the sky was very nice 
with LM6.8-7.1 and almost no light pollution visible. The Winter Milky Way 
was visible right down to the horizon, while the bright Summer Milky Way in 
Cygnus, with intricate detail and structure, was setting behind the spruce 
forest in the northwest, making a spectacular view. Zodiacal band was 
visible, running from Pisces through Aries and Taurus, merging with the Milky 
way and then on in Gemini and Cancer. Many Messier objects were visible with 
the naked eye, M33 was visible with direct vision and the Pleiades were 
enveloped in a ghostly glow.

The Geminids were very active right from the start. The first period had a 
rate of 1 per minute, which increased to 2 per minute by 23h local and a 
whopping *sustained* 3 per minute from half past midnight on. In a total of 
5.93h teff I saw 887 meteors, of those 761 Geminids! I was very surprised by 
the very high rates with the expected peak still 12 hours away! Sometimes 
bunches of Geminids appeared in the same area of sky just seconds apart. 
There were several occasions of several meteors in several seconds. There 
were also no less than 3 instances of *dead on* simultaneous meteors, the 
best being a pair of -1. and 0. magnitude yellow Geminids shooting through 
Taurus and Cancer. There were also several pairs of almost simultaneous 
meteors, appearing within a second of each other, partially overlapping. The 
Geminids were not particularly bright, though. There were relatively few 
negative magnitude meteors and the  majority were 2. to 4. magnitude. The 
best were:

- a vividly green -4. magnitude Geminid trailing an orange wake, only about 5 
degrees above the southern horizon at 22:12:45 UT

- a long -3. magnitude yellow Geminid with a 3 second train in Ursa Major at 
20:41:40 UT

- a -3. magnitude yellow Geminid in Ursa Minor at 01:39 UT

There was also constant sporadic activity with 15-20 meteors per hour and low, 
but detectable activity from all minor showers. The top sporadic rate was 23 
per hour, during the hour before moonrise. Among the minor showers, I felt 
the most prominent or easily distinguishable were the Monocerotids, which 
produced a constant rate of 1-2 per hour. The Xi Orionids were about the 
same, with 1-2 per hour.

The best group appeared in 10 seconds centered on 21:39:00 UT. First, a bright 
yellow-orange -5. magnitude sporadic fireball cut through Ursa Major, 
producing a flash that illuminated the ground and leaving a 3 second train. 
As the train was still visible, a slow sporadic appeared in Taurus, crawling 
towards Cancer on a *long 7 second* flight, shedding reddish sparks all the 
way. Meanwhile, two more Geminids of 2. magnitude shot down Orion and Hydra!

I quit at 3h a.m., because I had to take frequent breaks to thaw my completely 
frozen toes by running around and the moonlight became quite annoying. I 
spent the next several hours taking advantage of good seeing, observing and 
imaging Saturn with a C9.25 and a firewire camera. Much detail was seen on 
the ringed planet and its rings. We left after six in the morning, dead tired 
and deep frozen and just in time to catch the morning rush hour - I arrived 
home at 10h in the morning.


OBSERVING SUMMARY:

Observer: Jure Atanackov (ATAJU)
Date: December 13/14, 2006
Location: Kisovec, Slovenia
Lat: 46 16.7 N  Long: 14 39.42 E  Elev: 1265m
Start: 19:14UT  End: 01:50UT

Period UT     F   teff  LM    GEM  MON  XOR  HYD  COM  Spor
19:14-20:16  1.00 1.03  7.09   63   1    2    0    -    18
20:16-21:19  1.00 0.98  7.01   94   1    0    0    -    15
21:19-22:21  1.00 1.03  6.96  114   1    1    0    0    19
22:21-23:30  1.00 1.05  6.94  117   2    0    1    0    15
23:30-00:30  1.00 0.92  6.80  186   2    3    1    0    23
00:30-01:50  1.00 1.15  6.45  187   1    1    1    3    15

Magnitude distributions:
GEM1: -2(1) -1(4)  0(5) +1(8) +2(15) +3(15) +4(10) +5(5)
GEM2: -3(1) -1(6)  0(4) +1(5) +2(21) +3(28) +4(20) +5(7) +6(2)
GEM3: -4(1) -1(2)  0(4) +1(11) +2(22) +3(23) +4(28) +5(21) +6(2)
GEM4: -1(1)  0(12) +1(9) +2(15) +3(32) +4(30) +5(15) +6(3)
GEM5: -2(1) -1(2)  0(12) +1(20) +2(24) +3(59) +4(49) +5(14) +6(5)
GEM6: -3(1) -2(1) -1(2)  0(14) +1(22) +2(35) +3(74) +4(34) +5(4)
MON:  +2(1) +3(4) +4(3)
XOR:  +2(2) +4(3)
HYD:  +1(1) +2(1) +3(1)
COM:  +1(1) +2(1) +3(1)
Spor: -5(1)  0(2) +1(5) +2(12) +3(29) +4(37) +5(14) +6(5)

Clear skies!
Jure A.

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