(meteorobs) Lyrid obs, Sharon Massachusetts, 23 April 2007

[Richard Kramer]

Such a pleasant, albeit brief, April night session. Spring peepers in 
full voice. Relatively mild temperatures.  Despite the murky skies 
and the brevity of the session, spied a couple of spectacular Lyrids 
with .5 second persistent trains.

The mag -2 Lyrid was clearly following a spiral trajectory! This was 
independently confirmed by two observers.

Observing with my daughter. We were rewarded with a pretty mag 0 
Lyrid within 5 minutes of logging on. Then it got rather quiet. My 
daughter was getting sleepy and suggested an earlier than planned 
departure. I told her that if we left right away we'd miss the 
arrival of a tiny bit of comet dust that was only about 30,000 km 
away and racing right at us.

"How long will it take to get here?"

"Well, it's been speeding through space unmolested for centuries, but 
in another 10 minutes it's going to be very surprised as it slams 
into our upper atmosphere like a bug hitting a windshield. It should 
be a good one."

Not quite 10 minutes later:

"Well, it looks like your speck isn't coming."

"It's still about 90 seconds out. Let's keep watching. It will be worth it."

90 +/- 5 seconds later a spectacular point of light appears just east 
of the Northern Crown and races westward in an exquisitely tightly 
spiralled track, intermittently flashing bits of red and orange and 
leaving a brief, delicate, filamentous train.

"Wow! That was amazing! How did you know?"

(Some questions are best left unanswered.)


---------
Richard Kramer Sharon MA USA
71 deg 10.87 min W   42 deg 6.53 min N  Elev 220 ft


Showers observed Lyrids LYR, Antehelion ANT

EDT 00:04 23 APR to 00:42 23 APR
UTC 04:04 23 APR to 04:42 23 APR

23 APR 2007
UTC              Teff   LM      LYR    ANT    SPO    Total
04:04 - 04:42    0.62   3.5      3      1      1       5

Magnitude Distributions
          -3  -2  -1   0   1   2   3
LYR       0   1   0   1   0   0   1
ANT       0   0   0   0   0   1   0
SPO       0   0   0   0   0   1   0


Notes:

1. Obscuration 15% due to trees, hazy.
2. View centered on Arcturus.
3. Color of mag -2 LYR evolving red and orange with mostly white, train .5 sec.
4. Trajectory of mag -2 LYR was clearly spiral.
5. Temperature 38 F, wind SSE 8 mph.