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(meteorobs) Re: Somewhat unusual (?) telescopic obs.
Ed,
How long did it take these objects to cross the field of view in the
eyepiece? If it was fairly slow (one second or longer) I would be
willing to bet you witnessed some faint satellites due to the fact that
meteor activity is quite low that time of night. I probably average one
telescopic meteor every 10 hours or so through my 16". It must be stated
that I spend a great deal of time observing the moon and planets so
someone who observer deepsky objects from a darker location should see
more telescopic activity. Telescopic satellites are much more common
with a rate of about one per hour for me. To see two or three of these
objects at this time of the night would indicate to me you saw faint
satellites.
Your flash was probably a short-lived fireball which usually occur when
everyone is looking down :)
Clear Skies!
Bob Lunsford
Ed Cannon wrote:
> Monday evening here was unusually clear. A friend and I went
> satellite observing, and during about two hours (2:00-4:00
> UTC on Tuesday 6 April) each of us observed two or three faint
> coincidental meteors cross the 1-degree field of the eyepiece
> of my friend's 8-inch dobsonian telescope. That seemed unusual
> to me, as my experience in the last three years is that it's
> rare to see even one telescopic meteor in a given session. I
> believe that the magnification with that eyepiece is about 80x.
>
> Also during the evening both of us noticed simultaneously a
> bright flash from the sky, but neither of us saw a fireball.
> To my knowledge there were no thunderstorms nor even clouds
> within 50 or 100 miles or more of our location, which was
> 30.314N, 97.866W, about 280 meters above sea level.
>
> Ed Cannon - ecannon@mail.utexasdot edu - Austin, Texas, USA
>
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