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(meteorobs) Meteor Observations Oct 17/18 ZAYGE
I made my way to my observatory before sunset last night to get set up for the
orionids later. Then I had to boogey on over to a girl scout camp for adult
leaders to eat dinner and then give a constellation identification tour for
the large group. That went smoothly. But it was a long drive back to the
observatory. I got back around 11 pm and thought I would be too tired to last
the whole night adequately, so I decided on taking a 2 hour nap from 11 till 1
am. The skies were clear and very dry due to a Santa Ana Condition. There were
also some winds, but not as bad as I thought there would be. Had to endure
gusts up to around 15 or 20 mph with a steady wind about 10 mph. Sure beats
the usual Santa ana winds around 30mph or more. Due to the winds, I elected to
operate only one wide angle camera. So, under dark skies around 6.0 I observed
for a Teff of about 4 hours. The orionids are active. I recorded a total of 20
Orionids and 3 Epsilon geminids. I didn't plot these, but I plotted everything
else. There were 5 S. Taurids, and 3 N. Taurids along with 15 sporadics. In
all, 46 meteors were recorded. The brightest was a -2 orionid that left a 3
second train. Tonight I'm preparing for another observing run. I expect the
same observing conditions.
For those who have heard about the seemingly outburst of mountain lions in the
area that I observe from, may find it interesting to note that 4 mountain
lions were killed about 4 miles away 2 weeks ago. All were over 80 pounds and
in separate incidents. One stalked right up to a man. I almost suspect these
might have been that "litter" I often heard at night about 2 or 3 years ago
while observing? I haven't heard any in a long while.
George Zay