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(meteorobs) Dec 12/13 Meteor Observations From Southern California
For the night of maximum activity for the Geminids I drove 200 miles to
Joshua Tree National Park, located in the desert roughly half-way
between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I spent the entire morning packing
and running errands and left an hour later than anticipated. The weather
was completely overcast with cirrus the entire way up there. Robert
Gardner was waiting for me when I arrived at the visitors center and we
spoke of the strategies for finding a suitable site to watch the show.
We chose to stay close to the main road and found a great site at the
picnic area that included rest rooms! Robert and I spent about an hour
there and watched a beautiful sunset. Robert was a joy as he has a great
sense of humor and is very knowledgeable in science and mathematics.
Robert needed some rest so he decided to head to Indio to get a motel
and I needed a nap too since I had been up since 1am. I simply slept in
the bed of my truck as I was not up to driving.
Robert returned around 9:30pm and the sound of his car woke me.
Miraculously the sky was now mostly clear so we began to set up our cots
and equipment. I began counting at 1000pm local time and the Geminids
were falling impressively. Only 4 minutes into the watch there was a -2
yellow Geminid heading north that produce a train, the only trained
Geminid I saw all night. There were also many faint Geminids visible
under the desert sky. Unfortunately this turned out to be the only
really clear hour as strands of thin cirrus soon arrived and affected
the limiting magnitude and the ability to see all of those faint
meteors.
Don Barnett arrived with his son and daughter sometime around 11pm. We
were soon greeted with the first fireball of the night at 1138, a short
-4 Geminid that appeared very close to the radiant. To me this fireball
had a yellow hue but both Robert and Don stated that it was distinctly
blue to them. There were lots more Ohh's and Ahh's the first few hours
with most of them heading west beyond my field of view.
We were having a great time with lots of interesting conversation. The
kids were mostly enjoying the meteors. It was funny to me as the kids
seemed to enjoy the very faint ones just as much as the brighter
meteors. Don's daughter as soon snoozing away while his son lasted most
of the night. I'm not sure if she was asleep when the big one arrived,
but if she was we certainly woke her up at 12:34am with lots of
hollering as a -9 Geminid fireball shot past Orion heading toward the
southwest. It produced an incredible blue flash that lit the earth and
clouds. The meteor itself was bright pure blue and produce absolutely no
train or wake. It was gone just as fast as it appeared.
At 2:00am I decided to face west to try to catch some of the activity
that was eluding me. Naturally most of the good stuff now decided to
head east! I also grabbed some chips as I was also getting a bit hungry.
At this time one of the local inhabitants, a friendly kangaroo rat,
decide that he liked chips too. Every time I reached for the chips he
was there trying to get some too. It was a bit unnerving to have him
crawling on your hand but better a furry little rodent than a tarantula
or a scorpion! I finally ended up giving him a handful and locking the
remainder up.
That 3 hour nap must not have recharged my battery fully as I now became
fatigued and had to take a break at 03:00am for a quick snooze. I woke
up feeling a bit better and resumed counting at the bottom of the hour.
I did not realize that I had gone through so much tape on my cassette
recorder and my last meteor was recorded at 4:58am. The recorder is
suppose to shut off with a audible "click" but it didn't and I probably
missed recording 30 meteors. The highlight of that period was a bright
Coma Berencid. This meteor was intensely red-orange and the closest
meteor to being red I have ever seen. I was surprised that a swift
meteor such as a Coma Berencid produced such as color since I see mostly
blue meteors from this shower.
All in all it was a good display shared with wonderful people. I only
wish it had not passed by so quickly. Oh well, there is always the
upcoming Quadrantids!
December 13/14 1999
0600-0700 UT 1.00 6.37 0 COM 88 GEM 0 HYD 1 MON 0 PUP
1 XOR 11 SPO 101 TOTAL
0700-0800 UT 1.00 6.02 0 COM 64 GEM 0 HYD 0 MON 0 PUP
0 XOR 6 SPO 70 TOTAL
0800-0900 UT 1.00 5.91 0 COM 61 GEM 0 HYD 0 MON 0 PUP
0 XOR 8 SPO 69 TOTAL
0900-1000 UT 1.00 6.08 0 COM 63 GEM 0 HYD 0 MON 0 PUP
0 XOR 3 SPO 66 TOTAL
1000-1100 UT 0.83 5.58 0 COM 38 GEM 0 HYD 0 MON 0 PUP
0 XOR 4 SPO 42 TOTAL
1100-1200 UT 0.50 5.57 0 COM 23 GEM 1 HYD 0 MON 0 PUP
0 XOR 3 SPO 27 TOTAL
1200-1300 UT 1.00 5.96 0 COM 44 GEM 0 HYD 1 MON 0 PUP
0 XOR 5 SPO 50 TOTAL
TOTALS: 6.33 5.96 0 COM 381 GEM 1 HYD 2 MON 0 PUP
1 XOR 40 SPO 425 TOTAL
The first column gives the period watched stated in Universal Time (UT)
which is PST + 8 hours. The second column gives the percent of that
particular hour actually spent observing the sky. Time was lost for
plotting and data entry tonight. The third column gives the average
limiting magnitude estimated during each period with a minimum of 4
estimates using at least 2 and preferably 3 different sky areas close to
my center of view. The last several columns list the activity seen
during each period.
I was facing East at an altitude of 60 degrees from 0600-1000 and then
west at an altitude of 60 degrees from 1000-1300. Breaks were taken
between 1048 and 1058 and also between 1100 and 1130 UT. All data was
recorded on audio cassette. COM = Coma Berenicids, GEM = Geminids, HYD =
Sigma Hydrids, MON = Monocerotids, PUP = Puppid-Velids, XOR = Chi
Orionids, and SPO = Sporadic (random activity).
Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity: 42 F (6 C) 20%
Ending " " " 37 F (3 C) 20%
MAGNITUDES:
GEM: -9 (1) -5 (1) -4 (1) -3 (1) -2 (5) -1 (14) 0 (36)
+1 (56) +2 (76) +3 (104) +4 (62) +5 (22) +6 (2) AVERAGE: +2.22
HYD: +4 (1) AVERAGE: +4.00
MON: +2 (1) +4 (1) AVERAGE: +3.00
XOR: +4 (1) AVERAGE: +4.00
SPO: 0 (2) +1 (4) +2 (3) +3 (20) +4 (11) +5 (1) AVERAGE: +2.98
Bob Lunsford
San Diego, CA USA
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