[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
(meteorobs) Geminid impressions
Hello friends,
you have already read some very enthusiastic messages about the wonderful
Geminid display on December 13/14. I perfectly agree with the excitement
of our Dutch colleagues: This was a memorable maximum! Looking at the
numbers, it was also for me the most successful meteor observation ever.
The 1996 Geminids even bet the strong Perseid outburst of 1993.
In the mailing list you read about the activity in some first analysis and
I do not want to bore you with raw numbers. However, I want to give you a
short impression of what Rainer Arlt and me experienced in that wonderful
night.
The weather forecast did not look very promising at all until 24h before
the maximum. All the week before it was completely overcasted. However,
just in the maximum night a cold front with following clear sky approached
from the north west direction and headed towards our observing places
Berlin and Potsdam. Unfortunately, it's arrival time was not sure, so we
discussed all the day what to do. In the evening we realized, that the
clear patch would not show up before local midnight, so we decided to
drive towards the front.
First we went westwards, but eventually we drove straight to the
north, because the front did not show up. And really: After a 250 km drive
the clouds disappeared...
Pretty soon we found a dark site (lm ~6.3) near the village of Krampfer,
which hosted a summer meteor camp of Berlin amateurs for more than 10
years, and started the observation. That is, Rainer immediately begun to
watch visually (at about 23:00 UT), and I started to set up the two video
systems. That was a tough job, since Rainer was really excited from the
enormous activity and I had not a second to watch the sky. However, this
time not even one technical breakdown occured (even though it was Friday,
the 13th) and I could establish a 'personal record', since it took me only
one hour to put everything into operation. At about midnight UT I could
join Rainer...
It was just unbelievable! The Geminids appeared one after another,
without any break. In the first hours there was hardly a minute with less
than two meteors!! 'Traffic jam', as Marco called it, is just the right
description. At some time we counted up to 8 or 9 Geminids per minute. The
activity was comparable to the 1993 outburst of the Perseids and the
1995 alpha-Monocerotids, but it lasted not only for minutes but for hours.
Even though it was quite cold (-5 C), we felt very comfortable and
really enjoyed the fireworks.
In the last intervalls (~4:00-5:30 UT) the activity seemed to decline a
little, but therefore the number of Geminids with negative magnitudes
rose. Finally we saw a nice -5..-6 mag fireball, which was also captured
by our wide angle video camera MOVIE. What a success...
At 5:30 UT, just when we were to finish our observation, the power
generator run out of fuel. We put everything back into the car (which
was real pain in the frost) and went back home. We were not sure,
how many meteors we had recorded on the tape/paper roll. So the next
excitement was the result of the analysis in the afternoon: Both of us
had witnessed ~650 shooting stars in 5 and 6 hous effective observing
time, respectively! For me, this is another 'personal record', and what a
record!
Beside that, both cameras worked for more than 5 hours. I guess, that
there are more than 1.000 meteors captured on those video tapes...
I don't know what to say anymore: I was just great, and I wish all of you
would have seen it. That was one of the observations that 'recharges your
batteries' for years!
Best wishes, Sirko
**************************************************************************
* Sirko Molau * __ *
* Str.246 Nr.16 * " 2B v 2B " *
* D-13086 Berlin * *
* smo@informatik.tu-chemnitzdot de * Shakespeare *
* http://www.tu-chemnitzdot de/~smo * *
**************************************************************************
Follow-Ups: