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(meteorobs) Re: NWM2000Apr30/01 Florida Eta Aquarids start bright
My first observing session since January came on 2000 Apr 30/01, covering
3:16 hours (226 - 542 EDT , 626 - 842 UT) and recording 30 meteors total.
Showers gave 10 Eta Aquarids, 2 Mu Virginids, 1 Alpha Scorpiid, 1
Sagittariid, and 16 sporadics. There were no Alpha Bootids and no Phi
Bootids. The 3 regular complete hours 226 - 526 EDT had 0,2,5 Eta Aquarids
; 4,3,8 sporadics ; 6,5,15 total ; LM's 6.5 first hour improving thereafter
to 6.8. A time fragment of 16 minutes going to 542 EDT had 3 more Etas and
1 sporadic.
The first hour was acting dead. Most of the meteors waited until near the
end of the hour to appear. The second hour was hardly better, and the first
Eta Aquarid was a puny +5m at 404 EDT. But the third hour until the end was
very interesting due to the brilliance of the Etas. The best was the next
to last meteor seen : a strongly yellow -2m Eta with a one-second train.
Not much earlier was an intense orange -1m Eta going 25 degrees in 1
second, and leaving a train for 3 seconds. All but one of the Etas brighter
than +4m left trains.
Eta magnitude table going -2m to 6m : 1,1,1,1,2,2,0,2,0 - total 10,
average 1.80m.
sporadic magnitude table -1m to 6m : 1,1,1,0,4,4,5,1 - total 17, average
3.47m.
The night was somewhat smoky due to constant woods fires in the depths of
the dry season. It was quite cold for so late in spring, below 60oF -- I
needed a blanket that had not yet been unloaded from the car after the
January eclipse. Mosquitoes were minimal. Seems like there are always a
few around, but now is the most comfortable time of year with warming nights
and fewest mosquitoes ahead of the rainy season.
Norman
Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society
Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod@peganet.com
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