(meteorobs) Orionid Obs. 10/26/08 - Mathias, WVa

[George Gliba]

      Screech Owl Hill Observatory, Mountain Meadows
         Mathias, West Virginia 385710N 0785544W
                   October 25/26, 2008

  It cleared up beautifully after a front moved in and the sky
became very transparent. For brief periods the LM reached 6.7
and the Zodiacal Band became apparent. The Milky Way was very
nice too. I was able to get in three hours of meteor observing,
from 6:00 to 9:00 UT.

  There was a steady flux of post max. Orionids, but none seen
that were brigher than 0 magnitude. The best meteor seen was a
nice -2 magnitude STA seen at 6:42 UT. The LMI were fairly good,
a few ICA were seen, six Taurids were seen, and a couple EGE
were also spotted. There was a surge of sporadics the third hour,
just before the start of astronomical twilight. Below is a brief
summary of activity that was observed.


  Time (UT) LM %Obst.NTA STA ORI EGE ICA LMI NPX SPX SPO Total
06:00-07:00 6.5  0%   2   2  12   1   2   1   0   1   8   29
07:00-08:00 6.6  0%   1   0  11   0   0   2   0   0   7   21
08:00-09:00 6.4  0%   1   0  13   1   1   3   0   0  16   35

FOV  6-7 UT=06.0+33
      7-8 UT=07.0+33
      8-9 UT=08.0+33

Magnitude Distributions (06:00-09:00 UT - LM=6.5)
     -2  -1   0   1   2   3   4   5  total Ave.
NTA  0   0   0   0   1   1   1   1    4   3.5
STA  1   0   0   0   0   1   0   0    2   0.5
ORI  0   0   3   9   7   8   6   3   36   2.4
EGE  0   0   0   0   0   0   2   0    2   4.0
ICA  0   0   0   0   1   1   1   0    3   3.0
LMI  0   0   0   0   3   1   2   0    6   2.8
NPX  0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0    0   N/A
SPX  0   0   0   1   0   0   0   0    1   1.0
SPO  0   0   1   1   3   7  13   6   31   3.6

Clear Skies,
GWG