(meteorobs) It must have been a Camelopardalid!

[Bruce McCurdy]

Richard: In my public talks I often tell people you don't need a $10,000 
telescope and no sleep to be an astronomer, it's possible to do worthwhile 
astronomy while taking out the garbage or taking the dog for a walk. Your 
meteor sighting described here is a case in point.

Sounds like a beauty. I really love the slow ones, and my memory of my one 
lifetime Camelopardalid :) is a treasured one. Too bad they're as sparse as 
the constellation whose name they bear.

Found an interesting article on the Camelopardalids and March Geminids at 
Universe Today which cited a speed of just 7 km/s for the Cams and a 
possible source of the famous asteroid 1221 Amor. I had understood 11 km to 
be the slowest possible meteor (and 72 km/s the fastest); is this an error? 
(Perhaps somebody mistranscribed 7 miles per second?) Or is it me who is in 
error?

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/21/meteor-shower-alert-on-march-22-camelopardalids-and-march-geminids-arrive/

I'm a little puzzled that the Cams were not mentioned in Robert's AMS weekly 
outlook, IMO's annual calendar nor Meteor Showers On-Line. Is there 
something (else) unusual about this weak shower?

Thanks for the report, Richard.

Bruce
*****


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Kramer" <kramer at sria.com>
To: "Global Meteor Observing Forum" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2009 11:34 PM
Subject: (meteorobs) It must have been a Camelopardalid!


>
> Resend with corrected time.
>
> I was just taking the dog for his last walk of the night. At around
> 03:50 GMT (23:50 EDT) I was heading back towards home, with, as
> usual, my eyes on the sky rather than the ground (too dark to see
> much of the ground anyways). While walking generally southwest and
> gazing somewhere between Gemini and Leo, an enticingly slow, greenish
> white, magnitude -2 meteor cruised from due north toward a point on
> the southerly horizon a bit west of due south.It passed by the
> western edge of Gemini. There was a faint train of a few fractions of
> a second. The meteor's path traced back to the north roughly through
> the North Star. It became visible a little south of a point due west
> of the bowl of the big dipper and extended well past Gemini to a
> point about due east of Orion's knees. I'd estimate that it traversed
> well over 45 degrees of sky, perhaps nearly 60 degrees. It brightened
> to magnitude -3 during the last few degrees of travel. Because of
> it's steady brightness, extreme slowness, and wonderfully long track,
> I'd rank it as one of the most beautiful meteors I've ever seen!
>
> Unfortunately, I've accumulated too much of a sleep deficit over the
> past few days. As tired as I am, it would be pointless to go back out
> to attempt some formal observing. I'll have to be content with
> this  isolated, but spectacular, anecdotal bit of good fortune.
>
> Richard
>
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