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(meteorobs) Re: Geminid impressions

Hello everybody!

It's very hard to read the beautiful results of Geminid observations
because we were very unlucky with all this year's maximums. It is very
nice to see METEOSAT images, but it can be also very hard, specilly when
you know that the maximum occurs...

On Mon, 16 Dec 1996, Sirko Molau wrote:

> 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  *                                    *
> **************************************************************************
> 
>
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