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(meteorobs) RE: SW Florida eclipse and meteors
January has been largely clear from SW Florida with a few foggy late nights.
Eclipse day had a late afternoon cold front blow by rapidly with a nice rain
shower near sunset -- always good to get rain this time of year to retard
fires for a day. The sky cleared by dark, and Joan and I went out to the
Lehigh Acres observing site to start watching at 10 PM. It wasn't all that
bad for comfort, breezy with temp in the high 50'sF. I placed the car to
block some wind, and we had plenty of blankets. I even skipped the upper
part of thermal underwear.
I am very suprised to read about the impressions of a bright eclipse from
elsewhere. Out of ten major lunars I have seen since 1956, just those with
the eclipse fully visible from here, I found this latest one to have been
the second-darkest of my life. The colors were the most muted ever --
exceedingly dull. No hint of brick red this time, and Joan was just a touch
disappointed also, comparing with 1994's gorgeous orange-red coloring. The
deepest shadow had a very dark brown coloring with most of the rest a pale
orange-yellow. My Danjon rating at mid-eclipse is just 1.2 ; near the edges
of totality I give it 1.5. Quite a contrast with the series of Danjon 3's I
gave eclipses from 1960, 1968, 1971, and 1975. Got tired of the bright
ones, was wanting to see a dark one for a change. FInally got one in 1982,
Danjon 1.0.
This eclipse set an altitude record with me. At the end of totality the
moon was 85 degrees up. I observe meteors with the pillow doubled up to be
watching at elevation 70o, and I should have undoubled it after midnight. I
was straining my neck against the pillow some to follow the moon.
We went naked-eye only, to take in the full-sky changes and just enjoy the
show. But I observed for meteors as well. The sky began at LM4.0 ; during
totality it improved to LM7.3. From 1000 PM EST to totality at 1105 PM I
saw 2 meteors. First a very nice yellow 0m Delta Cancrid, then a 3m. Up
to 1126 just one more 3m. The regular hour, to 1226 AM, had 3 meteors :
4m,4m,5m. The last was only 10 degrees from the moon. Totality ended at
1222, so LM7.3 ended at 1226. Hanging on to 100 AM I saw 2 more meteors :
another Delta Cancrid at 3m, and a blue 0m. We quit at 100 AM and skipped
the anticlimactic late stages of the eclipse. I am discarding the meteor
time from my official records during the partial phases due to the rapidly
changing sky conditions. Joan saw all but two of my meteors, and she saw
one with the only train of the night that I missed.
Norman
Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society
Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod@peganet.com
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