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(meteorobs) Gems from Sicily: Oh My!




Hello fellow meteorholics,
    Mother Nature must have figured she owed us one
here in the central Med after what happened for the
Leonids last month!  Well, payback is a you-know-what
around here, cos last night was sharp and clear end to
end and the Geminids were up to the task!  I played on
"The Piano" of Mt. Etna for three hours and watched a
"gem" of a performance under a glittering dome of
Milky Way, stars, planets and a whole bunch of
meteors!  It's what it's all about folks, and such a
long time coming, I wasn't about to miss it...
   A "dry" front had swept through during the day,
dropping temps drastically and introducing a strong
wind gusting up to about 30 miles per hour as darkness
fell.  It was  blowing big time at sea level, but I
gambled that it might be different up on Etna and it
paid off. I arrived about 2300 local to perfect
conditions: a slight breeze and a z.s. pushing 7.0!
   
    Anyhow, the data:
Dec 13/14, 1999 Location: Piano Provenzana, Mt. Etna,
Sicily  Facing SW (Darkest sky)

2200-2300 UT z.s. 6.8 clear CFOV: Alpha Tauri 
54 Geminids  2 Dec Monos 2 Sigma Hydrids 1 Chi Ori
11 sporadics 70 total

2300-0000 UT z.s. 6.8 clear CFOV: Alpha Tauri
82 Geminids  2 Dec Monos 2 Sigma Hydrids 1 Chi Ori
9 sporadics  96 total

0000-0100 UT z.s. 6.8 clear CFOV: Alpha Orionis
78 Geminids  1 Dec Mono  1 Sigma Hydrid  1 Chi Ori
10 sporadics 91 total

The first hour:  This may have been the best of the
three, even though the slowest.  Had a beautiful -2
yellow Gem and 3 at -1.  Had a burst of three Geminids
all hitting within a fraction of a second (two of them
exactly simultaneous)of one another!  I had numerous
close Gem pairs during the watch, but this was the
only case of two occuring simultaneously.  It was neat
to watch!  You kind of ask yourself: Did I really see
that?  Several other bright (mostly zero mag),
long-pathed Geminids appeared in this first hour.

The second hour:  The Gems did the following things
this hour:  picked up considerably, got shorter in
length and got fainter as a rule.  Geminid #61 this
hour, however, was a woosy/doosy: a dazzling, bright
blue -4 fireball with an orange nucleus and a stately
terminal burst!  This puppy was just begging to be on
somebody's photograph!  It popped, flared and burst
all along it's almost 15 degree path through Taurus. 
A one-meteor light show (and musta been one weird
particle shape!)  

The third hour I don't recall too well, it seemed like
the Gems were beginning to slack off, or maybe it was
just the observer who was.  The wind, cold and
humidity all began to get to me, and so did my
fatigue.  So I reluctantly decided to stop tempting
fate on my head cold and called it a night before
pnuemonia or bronchitis set in!

All in all, a great show, my first look at a major
shower max since last year's Leonids, and my first
really good look at the Gems since 1980.  Not too
shabby!  I may try again tonight, to look for the
potential fireballs of the post-max mass
sorting/brightning episode that the Geminids can do so
very well!     
Till later, Paolo 
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