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Re: (meteorobs) Meteor report from Itay

Hi Philipp,

What bad luck with weather you've had since waiting to make some
observations! I hope things will improve for you...and one thing is certain,
the showers will come and go so there will be plenty of opportunities.

Estimating the magnitudes of meteors may seem difficult at first, but
quickly becomes easier with practice. The key is to prepare beforehand by
picking stars that will be above the horizon, and are of known magnitudes to
compare your meteors to. For example, when a meteor appears, quickly compare
it to these stars and choose one that it is nearest in brightness. The
magnitude of that star then becomes the magnitude of the meteor. As a start,
you might use:

(-12.0): full moon
(-8.0): quarter moon
(-6.0): crescent moon
(-4.0): Venus
(-2.0): Jupiter
(-1.5): Sirius
(-1.0): Canopus
(0.0): Vega, Arcturus, Rigel, Capella
(+1.0): Deneb, Altair, Pollux, Aldebaran, Spica
(+2.0): Polaris, Gamma Leonis, Alpha Andromeda, Gamma Geminorum, Alpha
        Ophiuchi
(+3.0): Beta Triangulum, Alpha Aquarii, Gamma Bootes, Epsilon Geminorum
(+4.0): Rho Leonis, Eta Persei, Delta Aurigae
(+5.0): Epsilon Lyrae

As an alternative, there are charts at the NAMN website that are handy for
printing out and carrying out to your observing site to use as a guide. The
address is:  http://web.infoavedot net/~meteorobs

Hope this helps!

Mark Davis, MeteorObs@charlestondot net
Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, USA
Coordinator, North American Meteor Network






----- Original Message -----
From: "Philipp Schmid" <schmidphilipp@hotmail.com>
To: <meteorobs@jovian.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 12:55 PM
Subject: (meteorobs) Meteor report from Itay


Hi Mark and the rest of the list!

I have to tell you that you are not the only one who had not much luck with
the weather. Since I'm more into astronomy and I subscribed to this list I
wanted to watch a good shower. This was shortly before the Leonids. But the
Leonids were clouded. Geminids were clouded too. At the time for the quads I

was on holidays and there I had the oppoturnity just to go outside and watch
the stars and look for possible meteors (normally I live in the city, so
it's not easy to see anything from there and going outside is a little
difficult late at night, because I do not have the driver licence now. I
have to wait another year to do it). But now back to the quads. I prepared
for them (the only problem was, that I did not know which time to go out,
because I did not have the www and left my books at home). But after a lot
of clear  nights it began to be cloudy at January 3rd. January 4th it was
totally clouded. January 5th was 100% free, but I did not have time that
evening.
Now a small report from January 2nd.
Time: 17.50UT - 18.30UT and 21.45UT - 22.15UT
Meteors: 5
The first appeared at 17.55UT heading from N to S. It had a magnitude about
2M. The second came at 18.03UT and headed to SW. It appaered smaller and
more far away. The magnitude was around 2.5M to 3M. The third came shortly
afterwards at 18.14UT. It had the same data, or nearly the same, as the
first one. The 4th came at 18.24UT and headed to WSW. It left quite a long
tail and the head and the tail of the meteor was dark orange and red. The
corpus looked quite big and it looked like, as is it was divided, because
there was a black line going from the front to the back. The magnitude was
around -2.5M. (It was much brighter than Jupiter). The 5th meteor crossed
the sky at 21.53UT quite high and was quite dark.
Location: Near Siena, Italy
Clear skys to all,
Philipp Schmid
P.S.: With the magnitudes I'm not really sure, because I never did this
before and just read about it. Could someone give me some advise or tips?
Thanks.




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