(meteorobs) Visual and Video Quadrantids from Tucson

[Carl Hergenrother]

I tried sending this posting out yesterday it must have gotten lost in the ether. 

The Quadrantids were also impressive from Tucson on the morning of Jan 3 UT. Jan 4 UT was clouded out so luckily the clouds held off until after the peak.

My SALSA camera which is part of Sirko's MetRec-based program was running all night. It is a PC164CEX-2 with a 4/1.2 lens. 107 meteors were detected including at least 73 Quadrantids. It is likely that a few Quadrantids were id'd as Sporadics due to poor positions.

A movie of the 107 meteors from last night is posted on my blog at 

http://transientsky.wordpress.com

Visually I was able to get in a little under 2 hours of observing. 82 Quadrantids were picked up in 1h 50m. From the moment I got settled in around 11:30 UT it was obvious that the Quadrantids were going strong. 8 meteors in 7 minutes is a good start under a +5.5 magnitude sky. 

The best rates seem to occur around 13:20 UT after I decided to stop counting (figures...). It was mid-twilight and a quick look around the sky saw almost a dozen meteors within a few minutes. 4 were seen in under a minute.

The Quadrantids seemed to be dominated by fainter members early in my observing session. As the session progressed, brighter objects became more prelavent with the brightest few being magnitude -3. There were quite a number of blue meteors. Very few were trained.

Also of interest is something related to a note in Wesley Stone's posting. He mentioned a number of faint fast meteors radiating from the south. I also noticed quite a few of these meteors. The most interesting thing about them was they all left short lasting trails even though they were all faint (mag 3-4). Unfortunately I wasn't plotting so I couldn't determine a common radiant.

My video camera did pick up a few meteors that may have been related. Three meteors may share a common radiant near RA = 155, Dec = -15. But with only 3 possible members you have to doubt the reality of this radiant. Any one else detect elevated activity from just south of Virgo last night?

- Carl