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(meteorobs) Obs. LANMA 15/16, 18/19 and 19/20 Aug



Hello everybody,

Last week we did some observations on the kappa Cygnids and late Perseids 
from Biddinghuizen. 'We' are Koen (Miskotte), Casper (ter Kuile) and me 
of DMS team 'Delphinus'. Weather is still quite unstable however, so not 
each night has been really succesfull. We have been in the field on 
August 15/16, 18/19 and 19/20. Other nights have been clouded out.
Below the data, and an impression. Kappa Cygnids were disappointing this 
year....

August 15/16 was a very good, clear night. This was the first time we 
could observe under good conditions from our 'new' observing location 
which is about 4 km west of our previous location. We are very satisfied 
about our new site: a very dark sky, even under less good conditions. The 
light dome in the west-southwest is perhaps slightly more prominent, but 
the sky in the North, East and Zenith is even darker than the old 
location. And no direct lantern light, not even at distance.
Like our Descanso friends, we also observe amidst sheeps (but the closest 
thing to a mountain lion is the kitten of the Appel family, that jumps on 
your sleeping bag at night, falling asleep in your leap making purring 
sounds...). These creatures make strange noises at night... One of the 
sheep has a cough that rivals that of a cigarette addict. Others make 
even weirder sounds.... Strange animals!

A beautifull milky way was visible on 15/16, and during the moonless 
hours Lm reached +6.9. After moonrise this dropped, to +6.3, but still 
quite dark skies with milky way! This because the sky was very clean that 
night. After moonrise, I slept a while -not my usual habit, but I was 
very tired after last weeks hard and hectic work (I finally finished my 
M.A. last week, but as always: when I wanted to prepare and print the final 
draft, things went horibbly wrong with my pc... That induced 2 weeks of 
severe stress, that I had to pay for last days while observing....).
This night also saw a beatifull close conjunction between the Moon and 
Aldebaran (15' for our location). I ended up with 113 meteors in 3.4 
hours. This night saw my 500th meteor of this year, a +4 Perseid.
Teams to the east of us were less lucky: they remained under the remnants 
of a cold front all night which had passed the middle of the country late 
afternoon. Too bad for our photographic multistation network.

August 18/19 was one of those nights that I hate: clear, but with 
continuous invading fields of clouds. Very annoying. After two hours of 
repeated breaks and restarts, we stopped. Back in De Bilt an hour 
later....the sky was extremely clear again.... Rats!

August 19/20 started of very badly with heavy cirrus. No observations 
early that night, but later in the night it gradually cleared and we were 
able to observe under very modest conditions (and perhaps only thanks to 
the very favorable dark location). Only the last hour was actually quite 
good.

During all 3 nights we saw nice late Perseid activity, some late 
Aquarids, but rather disappointing kappa Cygnid activity. Compared to 
e.g. the good show of 1993, this was really meagre....

No firebals allas. In fact, both Koen and I haven't seen a true fireball 
(i.e. brighter than -4) this year so far, nothwithstanding some 70 hours 
(Koen) respectively 37 hours (me) observing so far.
Below my data of last nights. I have now logged 628 meteors in 37.32 
hours effective over 18 nights this year.

-Marco (DMS team Delphinus, The Netherlands)


Observer: Marco Langbroek        LANMA
Loc.: Biddinghuizen (the Netherlands) 52d 29' N, 5d 37'E

date: August 15/16, 1998

UT            Teff   Lm    Per   Cyg  iAqr dAqr  Spo
21:22-22:25   1.00   6.9    12    3    1    3    18
22:25-23:34   0.93   6.9     8    2    4    2    14
23:49-00:32   0.65   6.8    11    0    0    0    12
01:41-02:31   0.82   6.3    9     0    3    0    11
TOTAL         3.40          40    5    8    5    55   113

Date: August 18/18 1998

21:26-21:54   0.47   6.8    7    2    1    0    7
23:00-23:18   0.30   6.8    3    1    0    0    6
TOTAL         0.77          10   3    1    0    13   27

Date: August 19/20 1998

UT            Teff   Lm    Per   Cyg   iAqr   SPo
21:40-22:14   0.57   6.4    1    2     0      8
00:05-01:08   1.05   6.4    9    0     1      9
01:08-02:09   0.90   6.3    6    0     2      10
02:09-02:50   0.58   6.4    6    0     1      12
TOTAL         3.10         22    2     4      39    67