[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

(meteorobs) 1999 Meteor Results(YOUKI)

     After having spent so many hours staring up at the sky last year, it was only natural, I suppose, to wonder what the results were.  It took some time and quite a bit of correcting, but I have finally arrived at some definite numbers.
     In 231.4 hours of Teff I logged 3074 meteors.  The child in me, however, wanted to keep track of unlogged meteors also (132) for a braggart's total of 3206.  Eighteen, or 0.006% were -3 or brighter.  I had to wait, on average, 12.85 hrs for a fireball to appear, but that number does not do justice to the true randomness of their appearances. For instance, I saw no fireballs in May or June.
     I had a higher percentage (0.014) of meteors that I classified as +6 (43).  This number may be suspect, but interestingly, I saw the most +6's during Septet when sporadic rates were very high,, even though the actual count for Sept. was average.  That is also the month I seemed to see the most  (discounted) "flashes."  I think it is therefore possible that the correlation may be valid.  Here is the magnitude distribution for all meteors logged in 1999...

-7  -6  -5  -4  -3  -2   -1   0    1    2     3    4   5   6
_______________________________________________________________
 1   2   2   5   8  26   61  135  331  701  768  562  429  43 = 3074

     ...the drop-off from +5 to +6 is still fairly steep.  Overall, the distribution gives a very nice curve peaking at +3 with +2 very near the peak.   There is no saw tooth effect, so I must not be *too* biased towards any of the magnitude ranges.  Any further interpretation of my magnitude perception I will leave for more experienced observers to determine, if the above table is at all useful for such analysis.
 **********************************************
 
    I was, I feel, quite fortunate to see five major showers at their local peak in less than a year's time, though one, the 2000 Quadrantids, are not included in the below shower totals.  The Lyrids, Perseids, Leonids and (to a lesser degree) Geminids were good to me.  Even though clouds forced me to miss the Orionid's peak, I still somehow managed to pull a rabbit out of that hat with a peak OHR of 21/hr the following night!  Here, then, are my shower totals for 1999...

SPO  1867    PER 292      LEO  228    GEM 192    ORI 102    STA  92      NTA  66
LYR    63    ETA  38      DAU   30    HYD  24    SPI  22    EGE  12      MON   8
OAR     7    SAG   6      NIA    5    VIR   4    XOR   4    JPE   3      CAP   3
DLE     2    SIA   2      KCG    2    PAU   1    SDA   1    AUR   1      GIA   1

     The SAG totals above are actually part of the SPO totals, and other ecliptic minor shower members undoubtedly belong in SPO also, but I have not had time to straighten out all that messiness for this report, nor do I fully understand it all, anyway!

Clearest, Most Transparent Skies to All!
Kim Youmans