(meteorobs) Aries-Triangulids seen 09/12 & 9/14 - Mathias, WVa
George Gliba
gliba at milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov
Wed Sep 16 16:21:45 EDT 2009
Screech Owl Hill Observatory, Mountain Meadows
Mathias, West Virginia 385710N 0785544W
Sept. 11/12 to 14/15, 2009
I wanted to observe near the maximun of the Aries-Triangulids
(A-T) this year, as it has been 5 years since I have seen significant
activity, back on Sept. 12/13, 2004. Instead of looking for only the
usual two sub-radiants, near alpha Tri. and alpha Ari,, and grouping
them together as ATR, I've included a third sub-radiant near beta Tri.
(BTR) this year, to differentiate them. All three of these sub-radiants
can be considered part of the A-T complex of radiants. This time, only
the alpha Tri. radiant got the ATR designation, which is also in-line
with the IMO recognition of ATR as alpha Tri. meteors only. Unfortunetly,
it was cloudy for me on September 12/13 this year, which may nave been
the maximum for the ATR sub-radiant.
I first noticed the BTR in 1994, and included them in my ATR totals
then, but I unfortunetly didn't specify them seperately. On Sept. 11/12,
1998, the Japanese meteor observer, Osada Kazuhiro was able to plot 9
meteors from this radiant from 14:15 to 16:30 UT, as reported in the Minor
Meteor Shower Circular #57 (MMSC). Interestingly, his average magnitude
was 4.4, while my average from four BTR was 4.5 this year. As can be seen
below, the A-T meteors from all three sub-radiants are generally faint,
and thus diffucult to detect visually. I was able to get five hours of
observing total done on three of the four nights near maximum though. The
2nd clear night had superb transparency.
Time (UT) LM %Obst. STA ATR ARI BTR SET NPX SPX SPO Total
9/12 4:00-5:00 6.4 15% 4 4 0 0 1 1 0 10 20
9/14 4:00-5:00 6.7 0% 2 3 1 1 0 1 0 9 17
9/14 5:00-6:00 6.7 0% 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 12 18
9/15 4:04-5:04 6.4 20% 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 7 12
9/15 5:04-6:04 6.5 0% 4 0 1 1 2 2 0 12 22
Magnitude Distributions (Sept.12,14,15 - 04:00-06:04 UT - LM=6.5)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 total Ave.
STA 0 1 2 1 7 3 0 14 3.6
ATR 0 0 2 1 1 5 1 10 4.2
ARI 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 4.0
BTR 0 0 0 0 2 2 0 4 4.5
SET 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 4 2.5
NPX 1 0 2 1 1 0 0 5 2.2
SPX 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 N/A
SPO 1 4 9 6 10 19 1 50 3.6
Clear Skies,
GWG
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