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(meteorobs) Re:Hale-Bopp, 1996 meteors, more
It's early Saturday Feb 1, and I just saw Hale-Bopp for the first time here
in town. Looks to be solidly mag +2 about 15 degrees up ( there's time to
rise higher), tail possibly 2 degrees, sky LM5.6. A cool, clear morning in
low 50's. The comet is very obvious with a coma half a degree across.
Should be exciting in a dark sky after the moon is out of the way. Anyone
who hasn't seen it yet is in for a treat.
Meteor totals for 1996 are: 46 nights with 1 hour or more, 144:33 hours,
3126 meteors. Best since 1981. The two months Oct-Nov had 1010 meteors,
and the top 3 Geminid nights alone had 1003 more. I think this was the
second time I got to see everything from the Orionids to the Quadrantids.
Contrasts sharply with the dismal year of 1994 -- wall to wall clouds and
haze limited me to 4 nights, 7:52 hours, and 165 meteors that year with El
Nino in full effect. Those years stay cloudy most of the time. With El
Nino absent it's much better.
There was a recent spate of observing site descriptions started by Becky. I
did mine several months ago but with so many new people around it's worth
repeating. Fort Myers is about 10 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico
along Florida's lower west coast. My site is further inland in Lehigh Acres
which is a hundred square miles of mostly empty paved roads for future
housing developments. But I doubt if it will ever fill in completely ; even
after 40 years Lehigh has just a central concentration with a very thin
scattering of houses over the rest. The area I go to is completely empty.
It's a 22-mile drive taking about 35 minutes. Most people cram in within a
few miles of the coast so the interior has dark skies with slight to
moderate interference in the west late at night. I seldom go out in the
evening, preferring to concentrate my effort in the late hours to get the
maximum meteor numbers. The sky is darker then anyway, plus the cloud
problem is minimized late. Daytime heating causes clouds to build up over
land in the afternoons, and these have to move by once the seabreeze lets
up after dark or have time to dissipate. That makes evenings often cloudy
but mornings clear. The sky itself is routinely limiting magnitude 7.3 when
clear ; but half a magnitude of that is coming from my good vision. Most
people would probably call it 6.5 to 6.8. The brightest open clusters I
resolve into stars naked-eye, such as M44, M41, M6, M7, Double Cluster. I
am equidistant from the large cities of Miami and Tampa, and out of reach of
both their light domes, so this dark sky is readily accessible. The land to
my E and SE is Everglades and other wildlife preserve, so it will stay dark.
My latitude is 26.5N and longitude 81.5W. Far south enough to be able to
see every first-magnitude star in the sky, but none are circumpolar.
Comfortable nights most of the year, but June to November has mosquitoes in
varying numbers with the rainy season. Below 60 degrees they are much less
active. I have done a couple of nights in the Everglades with ice on the
sleeping bag ; Lew remembers that. These nights are very few, which is fine
with me.
Some Geminid years are quite cold. 1980 was the worst with high-30's, low
40's throughout. The big freeze in 1962 on Geminid max had 35 for a low in
MIami, but a waning gibbous moon. I watched an hour from the living room
window and saw 11 Geminids. Then had to be at school early that morning for
driver's ed (junior year) ; the car on the way to school made strange
metallic creaking sounds in the cold.
The vast bulk of my observing, beginning in 1960, has been done from various
sites around the southern third of Florida. Routine dark-sky observing had
to wait until 1971 after I was done with school.
Most of January was warm with daily highs 80-85 degrees. A cold snap came
Jan 18 and we were told to expect a low of 40, then 37. It bottomed at 31
in town and mid-20's inland. Forecasters missed this one, big time. Caught
the vegetable growers unprepared ; and even near Miami they were largely
wiped out. Joan covered her large tomato plant, and I put an electric light
underneath the cover ; it worked well. We lost our sweet potatoes, but all
the fruit trees are OK.
Am very busy with tax work ; will limit any observing for a while. Had no
usable nights in January anyway, but I opted out of Jan 18 for sure.
Norman W. McLeod III
Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod@peganet.com