(meteorobs) CAM shower report from Central Nevada

[Robert Verish]

The
following is a redacted version of Ian Kluft’s CAM Shower trip report to the
members of his Stratofox discussion group:  
 
Ian
Kluftikluft at thunder.sbay.org 
Sun May 25 16:25:12 PDT 2014
 
No
big surprise for a holiday weekend, there were only 3 of us who could 
make
it [to the eventual viewing spot in central Nevada] ... Bob Verish from San
Diego (who was already in the Fallon area on a meteorite hunting expedition),
Blake Sobiloff N6BNS (formerly KI6JLX) from Reno, and myself [Ian Kluft].  Blake recently moved from San Jose to Reno.  He was a member of San Jose RACES where
several Stratofox members know him from.  
 
As
you probably recall from the pre-trip planning chaos, we had to 
abandon
our original plan of going to Black Rock because a front in 
Oregon
was going to make it 60% cloud cover there.  Nowhere in Nevada 
was
going to be better than 30% with thin clouds ahead of that front or 
behind
a another low leaving the area.  Looking
at the dark sky maps, 
Bob,
Blake and I each independently suggested Middlegate because it's 
where
US50 eastbound gets far enough from city lights for night skies as 
dark
as at Black Rock.
 
We
met up with Bob at Middlegate at 9:30pm.  We talked for about half an 
hour...
introductions, updates on each of our journeys to get there, 
meeting
some of the locals Bob had met while waiting for us, etc.  Bob 
also
described several locations he had scouted out during daylight for 
us
to view from.  At 10pm I pointed out we
had 1 hour until the peak 
period
of the meteor shower would begin.  So it
was time to pick one.  
The
nearest was just 3 miles south on SR 361 at an abandoned military 
radar
site next to the highway.  Since it was
the simplest and had a 
view
slightly favoring the north where the meteor shower radiant would 
be,
we chose it.  (Also, other sites on ridge
tops were disfavored for 
being
exposed to the highest winds.)  The
coordinates are 39.224786, 
-118.019901.
 
Though
we saw stars clearly above us, there were thin clouds visible on 
the
horizon in all directions.  So we were
pretty sure we were looking 
up
through some thin clouds too.  Though we
were exceptionally lucky 
that
occasional big clouds visible in the distance, mostly in the north, 
never
came overhead until after the peak of the meteor shower was over 
at
1am.  We all expressed satisfaction with
the location.  It was worth 
the
trip to get there.
 
We
saw our first meteor a few minutes before the forecasted 11pm opening 
of
the meteor shower's peak period.  Tracing
back the direction it came 
from
pointed to the radiant of the Camelopardalids (abbreviated "CAM" 
after
this) near Polaris, the North Star.  It
quickly became apparent 
this
was going to fall below the best-case scenario of a meteor storm.  
We
counted occasional CAM and occasional sporadic meteors (not from this 
meteor
shower's radiant).  We were seeing 1 CAM
about every 10 minutes.  
The
initial estimate of 6/hour held into the second hour as well.  We 
were
seeing more sporadics than CAMs.
 
Let
me put in perspective how dark it was.  Dark skies were what we went 
to
that location for.  Our eyes adjusted to
the darkness so that an 
occasional
car miles away on US 50 seemed painfully bright. Cars on SR 
361,
though obscured from us at the nearest point 200' away, were so 
bright
when within a mile that we had to cover our eyes or look away.  
But
there wasn't much traffic.  The Milky Way
was partly obscured by 
clouds
on the eastern horizon.  Though as it
rose higher it became 
clearer.  Bob likes to count the stars visible within
the Little Dipper 
as
a measure of the clarity of the sky - we counted 7 stars including 
one
within the outline of the dipper.  So it
was good, but not the best 
he's
seen.
 
The
fact that we were observing sporadic meteors showed that it was a 
good
dark sky site, even with the thin clouds.  Since we were observing 
Cams
that were sometimes as dim as sporadics, it indicated that other 
people
were probably missing out if they hadn't escaped the city 
lights.  Though some of the CAMs in our location were
fireballs that 
could
have been visible through city lights.
 
We
had been able to trace enough meteors back to the radiant to confirm 
this
meteor shower did occur as forecast, even though well below the 
best-case
scenarios.  Given all the unknowns of
forecasting a new meteor 
shower,
I think the advice was correct to set one's expectations low, 
but
be ready just in case.
 
In
the morning as we saw online reports that people were calling the 
CAMs
a dud, we realized how worthwhile it was to travel to a real dark 
sky
site.  
 
------ End of Ian Klufts trip report to his Stratofox Team
members ------ 
One point that I would like to add to Ian’s above report is
that while I was viewing to the North (directly towards the radiant) I never
observed a CAM (only sporadics), yet at the same time, while my two colleagues
were observing to the South, they observed all of the CAMs.  This raises the possibility that a single
observer fixated on (a somewhat low) radiant, could go through an entire
viewing session and “miss” observing any of the CAMs. 
24 May 2014 06:00-07:00
UT 58 deg F; dew pt ?? deg F; wind S 12 mph; some haze; average LM 7; 3
observers facing S 180 deg; teff 1.0 hr.
CAM: 4 - No Magnitude data (too subjective; no consensus among observers)
Sporadics: 5 - No Magnitude data
Total meteors: 9

24 May 2014 07:00-08:00 UT 55 deg F; dew pt ?? deg F; wind S 7 mph; haze/cirrus;
average LM 6.5; 2 observers facing S 180 deg & 1 observer facing N 30 deg;
teff 1.0 hr.
CAM: 2 - No Magnitude data (too subjective; no consensus among observers)
Sporadics: 4 - No Magnitude data 
Total meteors: 6
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.meteorobs.org/pipermail/meteorobs/attachments/20140526/e4a60570/attachment-0001.html