(meteorobs) More on video Orionids from Colorado

[Chris Peterson]

It's snowing tonight, so that's the end of data collection for this 
shower. But every night before this has been perfect- dry, transparent, 
cloudless. Of course, there was some minor interference from the Moon in 
the days before the peak, but in my experience that degree of 
interference has almost no impact on my video meteor rates.

So what I saw was a most unusual shower this year. Activity before the 
predicted peak was a bit lower than most years, the peak night showed a 
significant drop in activity, and then the meteor count rose the next 
two nights, with a strong peak of activity on 24 October. That behavior 
is not consistent with predictions, nor with the rather meager visual 
observations plotted on the IMO Orionids page.

Anyway, I have no real explanation. My total counts seem high enough to 
largely rule out a statistical effect. If anybody has any other ideas, 
I'd be interested in hearing them.

My report, with the daily frequencies plotted, is at 
http://www.cloudbait.com/science/orionid2011.html

Chris

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Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com