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(meteorobs) May 2/3 Meteor Observations From California



There was no missing the alarm tonight as I did not bother taking an
evening nap. A 4 hour nap during the day was enough to charge my
battery. I watched for 4 hours this morning from the mountains east of
San Diego. There must have been all kinds of critters out this morning
since the bushes were constantly full of noise. When you're out there
alone in the middle of the night even bunny rabbits sound like major
predators so I had no trouble staying awake. I must have used a gallon
of adrenaline as each sound made my hair stand straight. The warmer
night also brought out some unwanted mosquito activity.

Up in the sky meteor activity was quite slow the first two hours. There
were often long gaps between meteors. My first Eta Aquarid was spotted
at 0316 local daylight time and activity finally picked up from there.
After seeing only 10 meteors the first two hours the last two produced
25, with 14 of those being ETA's. The average ETA was on the faint side
and quite long but there was one notable exception. Late in the session
with the radiant some 25 degrees up there was a short -1 ETA seen
heading down toward the southeastern horizon. 

In addition to 4 members seen from the antihelion ecliptic radiant
(Sagittarids) there were also 3 more slow meteors plotted from the
Serpens-Bootes border that may be related to the Alpha Bootid activity.

The highlight of the session was the last meteor seen. It was long, slow
and I caught it out of the corner of my eye. It was a nice teardrop
shaped meteor of magnitude -1 traveling west through Scorpius passing 
10 degrees south of Antares. It was not an ETA as the backward projected
path passed well below the ETA radiant. It was a nice way to end the
session.

May 2/3 2000

0747-0851 UT  1.00  6.75  0 APX/SPO  2 ECL/SAG   0 ETA   4 SPO   6 TOTAL
0851-0953 UT  1.00  6.69  0 APX/SPO  0 ECL/SAG   0 ETA   4 SPO   4 TOTAL
0953-1057 UT  1.00  6.69  0 APX/SPO  2 ECL/SAG   4 ETA   4 SPO  10 TOTAL
1057-1200 UT  0.98  6.59  0 APX/SPO  0 ECL/SAG  10 ETA   5 SPO  15 TOTAL

TOTALS:       3.98  6.68  0 APX/SPO  4 ECL/SAG  14 ETA  17 SPO  35 TOTAL


The first column gives the period watched stated in Universal Time (UT)
which is PDT + 7 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 during the entire
session. No breaks were taken. APX/SPO = Apex radiant Sporadics, ECL/SAG
= Antihelion radiant (Sagittarids), ETA = Eta Aquarids and SPO =
Sporadics (random activity). 

Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity:   50 F (10 C)  63%
Ending         "         "         "       46 F ( 8 C)  62%

MAGNITUDES:

ETA:  -1 (1) 0 (1) +1 (0) +2 (2) +3 (3) +4 (7) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +2.86
ECL/SAG:     0 (0) +1 (0) +2 (1) +3 (1) +4 (2) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +3.25
SPO:  -1 (1) 0 (1) +1 (1) +2 (4) +3 (4) +4 (5) +5 (1) AVERAGE: +2.65

Bob Lunsford
San Diego, CA USA
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