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(meteorobs) Meteor (+aurora) summary, Westford MA USA, 7/8 Nov 2000 (GRALE)

The ATM of Boston had a special visitor to our Dennis Milan Memorial Observing Field in Westford on Monday night. This was professional astronomer and renowned UK meteor observer Malcolm J. Currie. "CURMA" works with one of the great IR scopes atop Mauna Kea in HI. I had the pleasure of observing last year's August Perseid peak with him from the slope of that extinct(?) volcano.

Although our humble field & skies could not compare with Hawai'i's astronomical mecca, we were blessed Monday with very nice LM >= 6.4 skies right from moonset at 1:30 onward... My Fellow ATMs & NHAS member Mike Aramini also joined us, contributing good conversation and much needed spair lawn chairs and blankets to our tiny team!

Among the highlights of the night were a rapid string of three Sporadics mag -1 to 1, all with trains of 1+ second, all within three minutes. Also a tremendous highlight for *me* was an extraordinary display of vivdly colored streamer and curtain aurora which I detail at the end of the following data summary.

Forgive the format of the following - I'm composing it on a tiny pager keyboard!

07/08 Nov 2000 (GRALE)
Westford MA USA
Session 0648-0813 UT
Dead time = 5 min
Teff = 1.33 hours
LM=6.5, F=1.0 (seeing 4/10)
Center of Field Messier 35.
Total meteors 29.

Magnitudes:
Spo -1(1), 0(0.5), 1(2), 2(3.5), 3(7), 4(7) Tot(21)
Tau 4(2) Tot(2)
NTA 3(1), 4(1)  Tot(2)
STA 1(1), 3(2), 4(1)  Tot(4)

NOTES:
CURMA revealed his LM area counts to be slightly higher than mine, while his average DCVs and meteor counts may have been slightly less.

Aurora at 0630UT:
  White, red Az=330o (NNW)
   in 3 distinct streamers
  Faded & shifted rapidly
   to Az=20o (NNE), finally
   diffusing into 15o wide
   reddish area by 0645UT

Aurora at 0815UT:
  A pale green-blue curtain
   stretched Az=330o to 0o
   with protruding streamers
   at Az=340 and 0o
  Faded & shifted to Az=10o
   and diffused into a pale
   red area, disappearing
   entirely by 0830UT

What a fine, lucky night!

Lew Gramer, lgramer@..., 800-501-1187
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