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(meteorobs) METEORITICS/PERSONAL
To all Meteor Workers
From Graham W. Wolf, NEW ZEALAND
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NOTE MY NEW ADDRESS......FLAT 2, 6 MAIN ROAD, WAINUIOMATA 6008, NZ
No phone at present.... e-mail facilities courtesy of the NZPCA.
I have been homeless and intermittently living off the streets and in my
car, for some 3 months or so.... on Sept 21st, I finally got a new home
to live... with spare bedrooms, full astro-facilities etc, plus a SETI
system I hope to construct soon, plus an Interferometer I hope to help
build at CIT in the Hutt Valley, Wellington... not the CIT near L.A.
Secondly, I apologise for my 4 months or so of medically enforced
"retirement" from all astronomy. As most of you will probably know by
now... I had one serious and two mild strokes earlier this year, and a
possible mild heart attack as well. I also have had a cancer scare to
deal with the last 6 months, and appear now to be over THAT as well. My
"big" stroke, semi-paralysed me down my right side, and it took over 3
months of very hard and determined "slogg", before I got back much of my
motor function.... at the moment, my "general" co-ordination is about
85-90 percent, but for fine electronic work, I may as well have cerebal
palsy. I've always said I'm a FIGHTER, NOT a QUITTER, and that the grim
reaper will not get me cheaply... nothing has changed there.
I have now recommenced astronomy (with a vengance????) with
solar/aurora/radioscience/occultations/lunar/planetary and of course...
the ORIONIDS, which this year were well below normal rates... moonlight
considered. My bext raw counts were only about 10/hour on October 21 UT
Looking forward to the Leonids....I'll be pyulling out all the stops on
behalf of the Southern hemisphere visual "team"... so you folk know that
there WILL be data from the Deep South, coming through!!!
Comet Hale-Bopp...still around...data 2 months ago from visual
observers in "Aussie", via Brian Marsden, suggested the cocmet THEN, was
running around 0.6 - 0.8 Mv fainter than "official" predictions in S&T,
CBAT, etc. Had my first look at in in some 4 months a few days ago.
Hale-Bopp is well and truely circumpolar, and last week was within about
1 deg of Gamma Velorum...heading higher up in the SE morning sky,
towards Canopus. Alas, on the "other side " of Gamma Velorum (Mv 2.2
binocular double) is a nice "round" Mv 7 "globbie", that will
surely fool heaps of people. The comet appears to be Mv 7.2 +/- 0.2,
DC=2, and an elongated coma of some 15' x 10' in a 6cm refractor at
45X. These are tentative personal data only, and need to be verified by
others in this hemisphere. I will try and update you "Northerners" in
about 1 month's time, on the comet's visual progress.
Congratulations to Robert Lunsford, on filling Paul Roggemans's massive
"shoes" as the 2nd IMO Secretary-General... not only is this a great
challenge for Bob, but a clear international signal of his
increasing meteor credibility. Rally around him, folks, and give him
all the moral and physical support you can, 'cause he will sure need it.
Robert has been playing a powerful triple-role... with the IMO, ALPOMS,
and NAMN. Few meteor workers can match Bob's committment,
professionalism, and sheer enthusiasm.
I am sorry that I had to recently usubscribe to METEOROBS, but will
continue to send the odd report to MEOEOROBS from time to time....
60,000+ messages in just a few months, sometimes over 200 a day.... I
just could not cope, and reluctantly had to take drastic action. Feel
free to send me an PERSONAL e-mail.... but no cyberspam from now on,
please.
Feel free to "snail-mail" me if you wish.
I wish you all out there, the best, and clear skies of course. There
have been quite a few Fireballs the last month, and I am sure the
appropriate Meteor Co-ordinators (IMO/SPAMS/ALPOMS/NAMN/BAAMS) will be
eagerly awaiting my latest batch of data. One thing about moving some
32km to Wainuiomata....6.9km from my front gate, I have a wonderful
dark-sky site at Upper Crowther Road, in Moore's Valley, where ZLMs are
typically +6.2 - 6.6. Also helps keep my petrol costs down.
Take care, all of you out there... I hope to write to a few of you SOON.
Bye
Graham (and Tereska)