(meteorobs) Jan 3/4, 2016 QUA obs from North Florida - Amazing good luck!

[Paul Jones]

Hi all,
     It took some effort and a re-location to do it and with considerable
Heavenly help on my side, I was able to get a pretty good look at the 2016
QUA max from here in North Florida and they responded in an awesome way
indeed.
     When I rose at 0300 EST and looked out, the skies were still mostly
socked in, but I noticed a small hole opening up in the western sky.  I
jumped in the car and headed west to the Hastings, Florida potato field in
hopes the end of the cold front was sweeping out west to east and that I
could get out from under it.
     By the time I got out there though the sky had begun to sock back in
and only left me a few holes here and there.  I decided to wait it out a
bit and see what would happen.  I kept catching QUAs through the cloud
holes, so I knew a good show was going on up there and also that I was
missing most of it!
      I waited about 45 minutes in total and between 0355 EST and 0440
EST,counted 26 QUAs through the clouds with a couple of them negative
magnitudes and a few sporadics here and there.  The sky was too cloudy for
formal data gathering though.  At 0440, I decided to give it up as it was
actually getting worse rather than better and head for home very
dejected...:o(.
      When I got back home (15 miles east of the potato field) the skies
were no better.  Just before I decided to give it all up totally and go
back to bed, I looked out one more time... and... was stunned to see an
almost perfectly clear sky look back at me out of nowhere!  It had gone
from completely overcast to clear in the span of less than ten minutes.
      In record time I was back out up on the meteor roof sending my
grateful prayers Heavenward as a -4 bright yellow QUA fireball shot due
west through Leo, quickly followed in succession by three other bright QUAs
spraying out in all directions all over the sky!  Here's the data from my
one memorable hour:

Jan., 3/4 2016, Observer: Paul Jones, Location: 5 miles SW of St.
Augustine, Florida

0515 - 0615 EST (1015 - 1115 UT) LM: 5.5, Sky Condition: 20% moonlight
degradation, Teff: 1.0 hour, Facing: South
55 QUA: -4, -2 (2), -1 (4), 0 (7), +1 (11), +2 (16), +3 (9), +4 (5)
1 JLE: +3
5 SPO: +3 (2), +4 (3)
61 total meteors.

Here are the mags on the casually seen QUAs between 0355 - 0440 EST:
26 QUA: -2 (1), -1 (2), 0 (4), +1 (6), +3 (6), +3 (4), +4 (3)

Although not quite as bright or as colorful as the post-maximum GEMs were
last month, the 81 observed QUAs did show some nice shades of yellow and
blue to me and a few short-lasting trains.  Most of their path lengths were
15 to 20 degrees plus also, making even the fainter ones very impressive
visually indeed.  What really impressed me about them was the "clumping
effect".  Several minute lulls were followed by short bursts of three or
four QUAs all hitting within a couple of minutes of each other all around
the sky.  It reminded me very much of a rotating sprinkler system watering
a lawn with almost the same regularity!  Amazing!

Hopefully, the rest of 2016 will be as productive for us all!

More later, clear skies and HNY to all, Paul J in North Florida
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.meteorobs.org/pipermail/meteorobs/attachments/20160105/a3833a92/attachment.html