I'd like to echo Pierre's comments and say
I too have just returned from my best meteor observing session this year...
After a VERY dissappointing San Diego Padres outing in Game 3 of the World
Series Championship, I was ready to head for the local mountains with Bob
Lunsford and watch meteors. I met Bob at his work and 11pm
local time and we car-pooled it for the ~40mi (~65km) ride to the local
mountains and the George Zay Observatory. While George was busy being
a fireman, Bob and I got front row center for a most wonderful display
of meteors. A veritable smorgasborg of meteors....Bright and dim
ones, looongies and near-pointers, slooow ones and blazin'
ones... What a great night !!!! It was my 10-15th time
up to George's site, and George, I must say.... it is the consummate
handcrafted homebuilt 2-story observatory... complete with electricity,
lounge chairs on the roof and a friendly sheep. Skies were perfectly
cloudless and clear. Air temp was a bit cool 38deg F (...so we cheated
used cozy electric blankets).
I observed from GeoZay's observatory rooftop
from 12midnight until 6am PDT and counted a whopping total
total of 171 meteors. The highlight (as Bob will agree) was an
-2 absolutely gorgeous sapphire-blue Orionid that appeared less than 5
degrees from the radiant, traveled ~1.0-2.0 degrees, was "thick"
as heck, and left a seemingly glowing 4 second persistant train.
That's what its's all about... ain't it? Well, I would have liked
to have that -8 monster Orionis bomb Pierre saw...:>..
Enough yakin', I gotsta get to sleep.. below are my formal data... hard
copy IMO report to be forwarded thru the appropriate channels... (and Bob
and I sure hope some the east coasters got some good weather so as to enjoy
these Orionid treats):
DATE: Oct 20/21, 1998
BEGIN: 0700 UT
END: 1306 UT
LOCATION: Long: 116deg38'13" W,
32deg50'0" N ELEVATION: 1003m
CITY & STATE: Descanso, California USA
(near San Diego) METHOD: manual
[note: I grouped STA/NTA into TAU, and I deducted 10sec from Teff for each meteor recorded]
PERIOD (UT) FIELD
Teff F
LM
ORI EGE
TAU SPO
Total
0700-0800
SE70deg .947
1.0 6.20
5
1 6
7 19
0803-0903
"
.925 1.0
6.20
15
0 3
8 27
0910-1010
"
.908 1.0
6.35
27
0 0
6 33
1015-1115
"
.872 1.0
6.35
29
0 3
14 46
1130-1235
"
.914 1.0
6.20
13
1 0
17 31
1235-1306
"
.475 1.0
6.00
12
1 0
3 15
TOTAL
5.041
101
3 12
55 171
MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTION TABLE
-2 -1
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 Total MeanMag
Shower
ORI
1 3
12 16
20 29
15 5
0 101
2.21
TAU
1 3
5 2
12 2.42
EGE
1 1
1
3 3.00
SPO
1 2
5 6
15 16
10
55 3.18
Total
Best regards, clear skies and many meteors to all.
That is all for now.. must get some sleep... going on 30hours sleep
depreivation not a good thing. ;-)
Joseph Assmus
Offiice of Sleep Studies, UCSD
San Diego, CA USA