(meteorobs) Orionids 2009 October 20/21 from Slovenia

[Javor Kac]

Last night only three of us were left to observe - Jure A. Rok and I -
others were not feeling well after spending a night at freezing
temperatures and high humidity.
This time we had to head east as the weather front was approaching
from the west. We found a nice spot about half-hour drive from
Ljubljana. It was again very cold and brutally windy.
I again started at 2h30m local time and observed for three hours Teff
until the clouds disturbed observations too much. The Orionids started
slow during the first hour, but later picked up significantly. In 3
hours I saw 136 meteors, 91 were the Orionids. I also recorded 12
meteors with my photographic camera, using 10-mm f/3.5 lens.
A couple of fireballs were seen this night as well. At 00h40m UT a 3-
magnitude sporadic shot through Pisces and left a 3-second train. I
captured the start of this meteor on my camera. The brightest meteor
of the night was a -4 magnitude Orionid in Cetus that left a 50 second
visual train, which was visible for 45 minutes on the photographs made
by Rok. My image of the fireball can be seen at
<http://www.galaksija.si/download/file.php?id=1128&mode=view> and one
frame of Rok's train images is at
<http://www.galaksija.si/download/file.php?id=1131&mode=view>
At 03h37m UT the clouds rolled in and we were forced to quit.

Clear skies!
Javor Kac
Editor-in-Chief
WGN, Journal of the International Meteor Organization
http://www.imo.net/imo/wgn


Summary report:
Date: 2009 October 20/21
Start: 00:31 UT
End: 03:37 UT
Location: 14o 52' 35" E, 46o 12' 02" N, 780 m
Place: Veliki Raven, Slovenia
Observer: Javor Kac (KACJA)
                                                   | Orionid mag. distributions
Period (UT) Teff  F    LM  ORI EGE NTA STA LMI Spor| -4 -1  0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5
00:31-00:49 0.30 1.00 6.39   4   0   1   2   /    2|  0  0  1  2  0  0  1  0
00:49-01:08 0.32 1.00 6.34   2   0   1   0   /    1|  0  0  0  2  0  0  0  0
01:08-01:27 0.32 1.00 6.29   9   1   0   0   /    1|  0  0  0  2  1  2  3  1
01:37-01:57 0.33 1.00 6.27  12   0   0   0   /    2|  1  0  1  1  1  4  4  0
01:57-02:17 0.33 1.00 6.25  18   0   0   1   0    7|  0  0  5  4  1  5  1  2
02:17-02:37 0.33 1.00 6.24  14   1   0   0   0    5|  0  0  0  2  4  1  7  0
02:37-02:59 0.34 1.00 6.30  12   0   2   1   0    3|  0  0  1  3  2  5  1  0
02:59-03:18 0.32 1.00 6.24  15   0   0   1   1    4|  0  2  0  1  3  5  4  0
03:18-03:37 0.32 1.02 6.17   5   0   0   0   0    8|  0  0  0  0  1  2  2  0

Magnitude distribution:
ORI: -4(1) -1(2) 0(8) +1(17) +2(13) +3(24) +4(23) +5(3)
EGE: +2(1) +3(0) +4(1)
NTA: +1(1) +2(0) +3(3)
STA: +2(1) +3(1) +4(2) +5(1)
LMI: +3(1)
Spor: -3(1) +1(5) +2(5) +3(7) +4(13) +5(2)