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

[Pierre Martin]

Hi Paul,

Well done on your efforts!!  It’s a good thing you “looked out one more time…” and then got well rewarded with it.

The Quadrantids were just great this year over the East coast of North America!!  Certainly appeared to be near full tilt!  I ventured out in -24C (-11F) at a friend’s cottage under dark skies to observe for a few hours until dawn.  Clear skies with occasional passing haze / thin clouds that became a bit more evident after moonrise.  The Quads were very active, lots of faint meteors with occasional spurts of bright ones.  Luckily, I also managed to capture the best of one the night, a 30 degrees long Quad fireball with one of the cameras with a persistent train twisting in the subsequent images.
I find interesting your comment below…

> 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.

… I have noticed the same very much so!

I have a queue of reports to send out, Gems (from my road trip to Texas) and then on to the Quads!  More later.

Happy New Year all!
Clear skies, 
Pierre M in Ottawa, Ontario




> On Jan 5, 2016, at 9:21 AM, Paul Jones <jonesp0854 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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 
>  
>  
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