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(meteorobs) Alpha Triangulum meteors & flashes: bright and faint

      I managed to elude haze for about one hour of observing Thursday
Morn: my new set-up for plotting works fairly well, indeed, much better
than before.  I plotted two A-T meteors, a DAU and an SPI, but did not
see anything from Robert's suggested Taurid radiant.  I did, however,
have two meteors whose paths intersected just to the right of the
pleiades cluster.
      The most aggravating thing is, just as a thick cloud of haze began
rolling in from the north, I saw an extremely bright flash out of the
corner of my eye from the north (I was facing south).  As I turned to
it, I saw a 4-6 degree persistant train that lasted 3 seconds.
       So I'm assuming I saw a fireball, which I would say was about
-6.  But as I grabbed my setup to plot with, and turn back around, I
noticed I could no longer justifiably plot anything....the stars were
too dim and getting dimmer and I was totally unsure of any placement,
only that the flash occurred about ten degrees left and below polaris.
The only thing convincing me I saw a meteor was the persistant train.  I
could not even log the speed, as I basically saw only the flash from an
extreme peripheral vantage point.  Any suggestions as to how to proceed
with this on my report?
        I sent Robert L. an e-mail a couple of weeks ago concerning my
own high rate of brief flashes at my site, which, like Dave seemed to
indicate, seem to occur in tandem with meteor rates i.e., few meteors
seen, few flashes seen.  Yet the obvious thing to me seems that they are
only faint meteors out of my direct field of view.  I can even tell that
some of them move in a certain direction. Given that I expect there to
be many more +6 meteors than +2's,  and the flashes occur in conjunction
with higher meteor rates, most of the ones I see simply must be very
faint meteors.
       I only record +6 meteors if they occur DIRECTLY in my line of
sight, and I'm almost as proud of actually seeing one as I would be
having seen a -6.  I have discounted literally dozens and dozens, if not
a couple hundred, of these flashes so far this year.  The interesting
thing is, when my friend Johnny is with me observing, he can often
confirm the same flash I may have just seen, proving to me at least they
are not optical artifacts.
     I have yet to feel any real fatigue so far this year, due to
well-placed naps, and I have not seen any other odd phenomenon, like
dark meteors, etc.
Kim S. Youmans



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