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(meteorobs) Geminids
Last night, 11/12 December 2000, I went out at 7:25 UTC to my my back
yard which is normally so light polluted that its LM is lucky to be 3.0
and sat down in the shade of my garage to admire the planets. Much to
my surprise in just 5 minutes I saw three Geminids is sequence of
Magnitudes 1, 0, -2. This last one sent me into my house to get into
warm clothing and pick up my recorder and talking clock. Unfortunately
for me my talking clock was in the wrong mode so I am having some
difficulty decoding times. However I will give this preliminary report
and fill it in later if I am able to decode the times. Between 7:47
UTC and 8:37 UTC I saw 11 Geminids and no sporadics. The low sporadic
count is due to the fact that I had a 45 X 66 degree window to the sky,
and a terribly light polluted sky even without the full moon. Under
these conditions, you can understand why I might be overjoyed at this
relatively low Geminids count in 50 minutes. I then took a break, then
moved to the other side of the garage, now facing east. Between 9:00
UTC and 9:15 UTC I saw three more Geminids of Magnitudes 1.5, -0.5, 2.
From that point on for the next 30 minutes there was nothing and the sky
was deteriorating rapidly. So I quit.
The weather in southern California has been so overcast that I had
not bothered to seek a better observing site and what I got last night
in my back yard was pure serendipity.
My observing site was in Sierra Madre, CA
118o03'30"
34o07'30"
950 ft elevation
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