(meteorobs) Meteor campaign in the Provence, France

Mon Aug 19 04:46:10 EDT 2013

Hello,

In the period from 3  to 16 August, I stayed with a number of DMS observers and friends in the southern French village of Revest du Bion (44 03'32 "North and 05 33'08" East). This  to observe the Perseids visually, photographically, and with two CAMS systems. Peter van Leuteren, Casper ter Kuile and Sietse Dijkstra were the co observers. In the village of La Blache was Klaas Jobse active, also with two CAMS systems to set up simultaneous observations with our CAMS systems. Besides the meteor observations there was also done much astrophotography, particularly by Casper.
Our location was a rented gite 3 km south of Revest du Bion. It has a very big garden with an open field with good views in all directions. 
The whole period in the Provence is characterized by extremely sunny and clear weather. What we also noticed was that the nights were very humid and cool, but fortunately without the associated fog or low clouds. 

Below is a brief report with my personal visual results of the nights.

¾ August 2013
In the evening and the later on in the night cirrus clouds. In the period from 21:58 to 23:30 UT the sky was clear without cirrus so I could observe 1.53 hours. It yielded 25 meteors of  which were 9 PER, 1 SDA and 15 SPO.

4/5 August 2013
Nice observing session between 23:48 to 03:00 UT. The limiting magnitude increased to 6.6. In t.eff 3.20 hours I observed 105 meteors, amongst them 43 PER, 3 SDA, 3 CAP,1  KCG and 2 ANT.

5/6 August, 2013
A rather messy night. Occasionally we had to stop to let pass extensive cirrus fields. There could be observed between 21:48 to 03:00 UT with a maximum lm of 6.6. The final total score was 42 PER, 4 SDA, 2 KCG and 47 SPO (a total of 95 meteors). A beautiful -3 SPO with a 4 second persistent train was the beautiful end of the night.

6/7 August 2013.
Mostly cloudy night. Only by morning a short clear period. Between 02:04 and 02:38 UT I could observe and that yielded only 13 meteors (4 PER and 9 SPO). After this period, we saw a nice thunderstorm at 30 km to the northwest of our location, moving over the famous Mont Ventoux with some nice CG's.

7/8 August 2013
All day and night a coming and going of (sometimes heavy) thunderstorms. At one thunderstorm at day we did see (and filmed) clearly rotation of (scud) clouds.

8/9 August 2013
A very bright but humid night. In no time all equipment soaked. Magnitude limit increased to 6.7. I logged meteors between 20:57 and 03:10 UT. This resulted in 5.17 hours effective time yielding 168 meteors, of which were 69 PER, 9 SDA, 1 CAP, 1 KCG, 1 ANT and 87 SPO.

9/10 August 2013
The only dry night, thanks to a weak mistral from the north. This wind often creates crisp and very clear sky’s. The limiting magnitude increased to 6.8 and delivered beautiful sights of example, the richly textured milky way, deep sky objects such as M33, the North America nebula visible to the naked eye and the zodiacal light clearly visible.
Between 20:57 and 03:10 UT I counted in 5.75 hours 238 meteors of which 128 PER, 7 SDA, 3 CAP3, 4 KCG,1  ANT and 95 SPO. The most beautiful meteor was a -4 Perseid.

10/11 August 2013
Slightly less bright than the previous night, lm up to 6.7. Between 20:33 and 03:10 UT I observed during 6.23 hours 261 meteors of which 153 PER, 8 SDA, 2 CAP  12 KCG (!) and 86 SPO. About the KCG's, these were seen more than usual in similar nights. In 1993 and 2007 they were considerably more active with regular bright fireballs. This years KCG activity was more comparable to 1985 when I also counted more than normal numbers of KCG's, but then I saw also no fireballs. The brightest KCG of this night were a pair of magnitude 0 and +1. A number of bright meteors was also observed from the apex region and I may have also seen the eta Eridanids. These were often bright meteors with long duration trails. But I have not payed attention to meteors from this radiant. These meteors are inclued in the numbers of  sporadic meteors.
The Perseids hourly counts amounted to 30-35 per hour at dawn. A -3 and a -4 Perseid were the most beautiful of meteors this night.

11/12 August 2013
Again a crisp night which lm rose to 6.8. Between 20:17 and 03:15 UT I logged in 6.58 hours 419 meteors of which were 316 PER, 6 SDA, 3 CAP, 7 KCG and 87 SPO. The Perseids hourly counts rose up to 80 to 90 an hour. Many Perseids were weak, as expected. The beautiful ones were a pair of magnitude -4. The KCG's were still active. In the first hour I observed a couple of beautiful Perseid earthgrazers.

12/13 August
At daytime the weather changed. The famous deep blue sky was more like milky/blue. Especially in the evening some thin cirrus came over from thunderstorms in the Pyrenian mountains. The moon lighted the sky  a bit in the evening. This all resulted in a lower lm of 6.5. But that does not stop the meteors from appearing! During 6.18 hours of netto observing time I logged 371 PER, 3 SDA, 4 CAP, 8 KCG, 2 ANT and 81 SPO. A total of 469 meteors! Many bright stuff to, I counted 2x PER of magnitude -5, 2x magnitude -4 and 6x PER of -3.
The Perseid counts went up to 80 to 90 meteors an hour at dawn. That means that the ZHR was higher than in previous night. The hourly counts were the same as previous night but the lm was much lower this night. As written above, it was 6.5 compared to 6.8 in the previous night (11/12-8-2013). 
This night was also a bit special for me, I counted my 70 000 nd meteor since I started meteor observations in 1978;-)!

13/14 August
A broken night because of a weak  cold front with high and middle clouds passed that night. In the evening I was able to observe the moonlit sky for an hour (20:10 and 21:10 UT). This yielded 8 PER and 1 SPO. Amongst them two beautiful earth grazers.
Between 21:10 and 00:32 UT it was mostly cloudy, then it cleared slowly from the northwest. The lm rose to 6.7.
In total, I counted 103 PER, 1 CAP, 4 KCG  and 30 SPO during 3.18 hours effective (in total 138 meteors). The Perseid hourly counts rose up to 40 to 50 an hour. As a -3 Perseid was the highlight of the night.

14/15 August
In the evening more moonlight. The lm was 6.6. I observed for 4.27 hours and counted  137 meteors, of which 84 PER, 1 CAP, 4 KCG and 48 SPO. Two Perseids of -4 were the most bright meteors.

15/16 augustus
The last night at Revest du Bion. Between 00:15 and 02:15 UT I logged58 meteors which 35 PER, 1 CAP, 1 KCG , 2 ANT 19 SPO (a total of 58 meteors) The most beautiful meteor was a Perseid of -3.

Summarizing
In total this campaign I could observe during 47.94 hours. It resulted in data of 1357 PER, 41 SDA, 19 CAP, 44 KCG, 8 ANT and 657 SPO. 20 of these meteors were of magnitude -3 to -5.  Very bright fireballs were not seen. All my data is available at the IMO website.

Besides the huge bulk of visual meteors (Peter counted a total of 1700 meteors and Sietse counted hundreds of meteors) were also the CAMS cameras very successful with over 500 simultaneous meteors. In the future also the photos will be viewed and processed. When the pictures and timelapse movies are available on the web I will post it to Meteorobs.

Best wishes,Koen
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