(meteorobs) Possible New Radiant - 11/02/13 - Mathias, WVa

[George Gliba]

       Screech Owl Hill Observatory, Mountain Meadows
                    Mathias, West Virginia
                     November 01/02, 2013

Although it was partly cloudy most of the night it did clear
up beautifully and provided excellent transparency later.
The transparency reached 6.6 at times with an average of 6.5
for the hours that I formally observed meteors. It was so good
that the Winter Milky Way and the Zodiacal Band intersected
and made an 'X' in the morning sky. Earlier I saw a few nice
orange colored AND meteors, but saw none while I did my formal
meteor watching from 6:15 to 8:15 UT in the morning hours. We
also saw comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy in 25x100 binoculars just after
midnight. It was easy to see at around 7th magnitude. It is a
fine comet and getting brighter.

Unlike Paul Martsching at McFarland Park in Iowa the next night,
I saw fairly good Taurid meteor rates and swift bright meteors
coming from A POSSIBLE NEW METEOR RADIANT located at: 11.0 +75,
which was very close to the OCT radiant seen 27 days earlier.
Although they are probably not related, as they were similar in
brightness but not speed. These meteors were swift and several
left persistent trains! I am calling them NCT below. I saw seven
of them in two hours. Video and Radar observations that night
and nights around that time may show these meteors. Unfortunetly
I was unable to look for them the next night due to clouds, but
I did see a nice -5 sporadic fireball at 2:30 UT while observing
casually.

11/02/13 - FOV=8.0 +35, Facing East, Very Clear, 10% bldg. obst.

Time (UT)  LM  Obst.NTA STA ORI EGE ZCN LEO NCT SPO Total Note
6:15-7:15  6.5 10%   2   2   3   0   0   1   4   4   16   NCT?
7:15-8:15  6.5 10%   4   3   1   0   1   4   3   7   23   NCT?

Magn. Distributions 11/02/13, 10% bldg. obst. Very Clear
Recording Meteors from 6:15-8:15 UT, LM=6.5

     -1   0   1   2   3   4   5  total  Ave.
NTA  1   0   1   1   1   2   1    6    3.2
STA  0   1   0   1   2   0   1    5    2.6
ORI  0   0   0   1   0   2   1    4    3.8
EGE  0   0   0   0   0   0   0    0    N/A
ZCN  0   0   0   0   1   0   0    1    3.0
NCT  1   0   2   2   2   0   0    7    1.6 !
LEO  0   0   0   3   1   0   1    5    2.8
SPO  0   0   1   3   3   3   1   11    3.0

Starry Skies,
GWG