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Re: (meteorobs) NAMN membership

Hi! This message is a introduction to myself.

My name is Jeff Lashley, I am a member of the Sunderland Astronomical
Society. I am 35 years old, and have been involved in amateur astronomy 
for 20 years. 
I have long had an interest in meteors, but like many, I tended to watch
only the major showers near peak times, and knowing what I know now, I was
not observing them very scientifically most of the time.
Membership of Sunderland A.S. has spurred my interest in meteor observing
more than anything else, since our "patron" if that is the right word, 
is T.W. Backhouse who was a prolific meteor observer of the late 19th Century
and early 20th Century, who lived in Sunderland, UK.
During the Perseid meteor shower this August I had organised teams of 
photographers to attempt to get double station photos of bright meteors,
although the film has yet to be processed.
I have an intensified video camera nearly ready to operate, but this
does a good job at recording light pollution! I am a bit dissapointed
that my best lens - an 85mm f/1.5 gives a usable field of only 12 degrees,
while a 28mm f/3.5 takes in so much sky fog as to render reference stars
invisible. I have to drive about 30 miles for a reasonably dark sky!
I am putting together a radio forward scatter unit (slowly) and am hoping
to use 24 FM stations in southern UK for this, and once "proved" functional
will hopefully be automated.
I have a web site currently for the Sunderland A.S. on 

http:// www.meteordot demon.codot uk

which is a backup for our main site which is undergoing major server upgrades
on:

http://www.dur.acdot uk/~d5845s

so in the next 2 to 3 weeks these sites will be changing, but will still exist.
I am planning to set up a British Meteor Network, primarily to promote
fireball patrols, and undertake photographic triangulations.
Another interest of mine is to study the activity of minor showers, with a 
view to confirm their existence, determine start/end dates etc.
For this purpose I am setting up another web site on:

http://home.virtual-pcdot com/meteor

but it may be some time before this is in a fit state.

Lastly, I was interested to read Neil Bones message a few days ago about 
a bright fireball seen over northern England. I and two collegues were 
succeeding in observing  cloud types when we saw a bright flash. No stars 
could be seen for cloud cover and non of us actually saw the fireball, but we
all saw the shadows cast by this event! The only thing I could liken it to is
the light of the Full Moon, but owing to cloud cover I suspect the event was
considerably brighter. The direction would have been approximatly west of
our location 2 deg 4 min East, 54 deg 51min North.

regards
-- 
Jeff Lashley
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