(meteorobs) BRIGHT Geminids last night (Dec 14/15)

[Pierre Martin]

Hi Koen,

It sounds like you had a terrific year for the Geminids!  Three clear  
nights centered on the peak night... Congrats!  By the current  
activity profile on the IMO's site, it seems like an unusually good  
return of Geminids!

During the post-max night (Dec 14/15 2007), I managed to capture  
several nice meteors with my two cameras.  Here's some results...

http://tinyurl.com/36pel8
Multiple short exposures were taken over a few hours on December 15  
2007, and then stacked/stitched together to produce this composite.   
This area of the sky faces Hydra and Canes Minor.  Taken with my  
Canon 300D set to ISO 1600 and a 35mm lens at f/2.0. )

http://tinyurl.com/39l9x3
(Same multiple short exposures and stacking as above, but taken in a  
different part of the sky (facing Ursa Major and Ursa Minor) with my  
second camera... a Canon 30D set to ISO 1600 and a 20mm lens at f/2.8.

http://tinyurl.com/2erwfj
This meteor is not a Geminid, but a late Taurid / antihelion. Taken  
with my Canon 300D, Canon 35mm f/2.0 lens and a 15 sec exposure.

Clear skies,
- Pierre





On 16-Dec-07, at 7:32 AM, Koen Miskotte wrote:

> Hi Pierre,
> The same goes voor me! In search of clear weather we decided to  
> take a plane
> (!) to Portugal. There we could observe during three clear nights!  
> I was
> with my friends Carl Johannink, Michel Vandeputte, Simon  
> Vanderkerken &
> Inneke Vanderkerken. The location was 30 km east of Evora (~8 degr,  
> east,
> 38,5 North).
> 12/13-12
> Only Michel coulds observe this night.
>
> 13/14-12.
> We had an 8 hour session (21:30-06:30 UT) with many, many Geminids.
> Limithing magnitudes up to 6.7. I think I did see 800-900 meteors,  
> but I
> still had no time to listen to my recordings. No really bright  
> fireballs
> seen.
>
> 14/15-12
> A really great night! During the period 21:00-05:00 UT we had good  
> Geminid
> activity under bright skie's (Lm 6,6 -6.7). The first hours we had  
> normal
> activity, but after 00:30 meteors became brighter and brighter. As  
> a team we
> did see 14 (yes, fourteen) Geminid fireballs between magnitude -4  
> and -8! I
> never seen so much Geminid fireballs in one night as this year.  
> Geminid
> activity was declining at the end of the night.
> Both nights I operated my Canon EOS 40D with a Canon EF 2.8/15 mm  
> fish eye
> lens. During a short look I saw 20 bright Geminids (amongst them 2
> fireballs) so a closer inspection of the 1200 images (!) will  
> reveal more
> meteors.
> More results later!
> Best wishes,
> Koen