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(meteorobs) Re: NWM 98May4/5 Eta Aqr same again
Tim saw the Eta Aquarids sputtering to life this morning. But it didn't
last long enough to benefit me around five hours later. 1998 May 4/5 I
observed 350 - 550 EDT (750 - 950 UT) for 2:00 hours seeing 30 meteors
total: 16 Eta Aquarids, 1 Sagittarid, 3 Alpha Bootids, and 10 sporadics.
Some cloudy weather came by in the afternoon and much of the night, giving
us some much-needed rain. I had to wait until it looked like clearing would
hold, then went out a bit late.
The remainder of my usual first hour was rather dead. The first Eta came at
410 EDT, a beautiful intense orange -1m with pale orange train lasting 2
seconds. The meteor covered 50 degrees in 3 seconds. By 426 I had seen
only 6 meteors total in sky LM7.0, the last being a Sagittarid.
For the regular full hour 426 - 526 EDT the sky improved to LM7.2 with 18
total meteors : 11 Eta Aquarids, 2 Alpha Bootids, and 5 sporadics. It began
and ended with good action. Four meteors appeared within a minute at the
start, and 3 Etas within 3 minutes ended it. There was another fine -1m
like the first one, except this one occurred very near the radiant so it
traveled only 3 degrees.
Average Eta magnitude for 16 seen, all in 7.0 sky, was again faint at 3.25m.
By coincidence this is the same result in total and average from 2 nights
earlier. There were two -1m, two +2m, four +3m, three +4m, four +5m, and
one +6m. I found my 1981 results : 134 Etas seen in 7.0 sky averaged 3.10m.
So they can run faint some years, but my long-term average is brighter.
This year the shortage of +1m's and brighter is holding the average down.
I have noticed some swift meteors coming from the middle of Sagittarius, and
perhaps Capricornus, but I haven't plotted. Fomalhaut is just coming up as
twilight begins so I can't check out activity from Grus yet.
Norman