(meteorobs) Meteor Obs. 1/21/07 Correction

[George Gliba]

Correction - Forgot to change year before!

               Screech Owl Hill Observatory, Mountain Meadows
                      West Virginia 385710N 0785544W
                             January 20/21, 2007


We went up to our cabin at Mountain Meadows, West Virginia to try to see 
some
meteors and the tail of C/2006 McNaught P1. We were able to see part of the
tail of the comet just after astronomical twilight ended. We noticed three
syncodines (isochrones) of the tail, and their total extent was ~20 degrees
high above the WSW horizon by ~15 degrees wide. The zodiacal light was also
seen and the magnitude limit at the time was about 6.7 near zenith. An 
amazing
thing to see this far north!

However, I was only able to get an hour of meteor observing in before it 
got
too cloudy to observe. I did manage to see eleven meteors from 3:52 to 4:53
UT, with a magnitude limit of 6.2 and 25% clouds. Amoong them were two 
possible
meteors from a radiant a couple degrees east of Betelguese (alpha 
Orionis) that
were also seen last year on January 21/22, 2006. That makes 5 seen from this
putative radiant of medium slow meteors in three hours.

No meteors brighter than 2nd magnitude were seen, Below is a short 
breakdown of
what meteors were seen.

AOR = alpha Orionids (as seen also last year)

   Time (UT)  LM  %Obst. AOR  AHY  ANT  SPO  Total   FOV    Comments
03:52-04:52  6.2   25%   2    1    1    7    11   various  some haze

Magnitude Distributions (3:52-4:52 UT)

      1   2   3   4   5  total  Ave.
AOR  0   0   1   1   0    2    3.5
AHY  0   0   0   1   0    1    4.0
ANT  0   0   1   0   0    1    3.0
SPO  0   1   1   3   2    7    3.1

Clear Skies,
GWG