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(meteorobs) July 21/22 Obs LANMA
Hello,
Last night was weird. It started off very badly, but it ended all very
well. Below my data and an impression.
After the thunderstorms of monday, the passage of a cold front resulted
in clear blue skies and a strong breeze in the afternoon and evening of
yesterday. Prospects seemd good. At 22:30 UT (0:30 am local) I started
observations. It was a nice clear sky with Lm near +6.1, but some cumuli
low in the west sounded trouble it seemed. And indeed: after 6 minutes
these had entered close enough to necessitate a break of 15 minutes. Then
the sky cleared again, but a new batch of cumuli was soon spotted. near
23:15 they came very near and at 23:20 I was forced to stop. At that
time, it seemed it was all over for this night: the cumulus field
occupied the whole sky up to the horizon, with no clearing visible.
Actually this made me chagrin since daytime activities also hadn't gone
too well (it is really annoying when the computer network goes down right
at the moment you are trying to print the final version of a analytical
report you have been working on 12 hours/day for the last 3 weeks and
want to finish defenitely this week) and therefore I had looked forward
to some relief through observing. Anyway, I went to sleep disappointed
after only 0.57 hours observing and 6 sporadics.
About 20 mintes later, I decided to look out of my bedroom window. I
guess this was some kind of 'hunch'. Guess what: yes, it was brilliantly
clear from horizon to horizon! And when I say 'Brilliant', I mean
'Brilliant'! Lm 6.4 in Aquila and Draco: wow! So I quickly got dressed
again and got outdoors again. From 23:50 untill 01:15 UT, I was able to
harvest meteors by the number under perfect conditions: a beatifull sky
(for the standards of my village) with a nice milky way. Many meteors,
albeit mostly faint specimens. When twilight set in, fomalhaut was
visible low in the south, with Jupiter higher up in the sky. So
this night ended, quite unexpected after the bad start, very well indeed!
No really eye-catching events though (brightest +1, sporadic). Some
omicron Cygnids, only one early Perseid, low Capricornid and Aquarid
activity. Very enjoyable!
-Marco
Obs: Marco Langbroek LANMA
Date: July 21/22, 1998
Loc: Voorschoten, the Netherlands, 52d 07' N, 4d 28' E
UT Teff Lm dAqr Cap oCyg Per Paust Spo
22:30-23:20 0.57 6.1 0 0 0 0 0 6
23:50-01:15 1.31 6.4 2 1 3 1 0 12
TOTAL 1.88 <6.3> 2 1 3 1 0 18 25
stream +1 +2 +3 +4 +5
Sporadics 1 3 5 6 3
o Cygnids 0 1 2 0 0
d Aquarids 0 0 1 1 0
Perseids 0 0 0 1 0
Capricornids 0 0 0 1 0