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(meteorobs) Orinids observation from China



I rent a car and drove to the site with 4 friends in Oct. 21 afternoon. 
We were going to make some visual observation for the Orionids, and
to get some feeling with the new site, which was recommended by our
friends in the Beijing Amateur Astronomer Sodality and was frequently
used by them during the recent years for meteor observations. The site
is 70 km west of Xinglong (where we made most of our meteor observations)
and 65 km north of Beijing. We spent two and half an hour on the road and
arrived the small village, Xizhazi of Huairou county, at about 16:00,
which was just about the expected Orionids maximum. 

The village is surrounded by mountains, near the Great Wall (Jiankou part,
not far from the more famous part Mutianyu). A nearby mountain Heituoshan
is 1500+ meters above sea level. The weather was not good and there was
some mist which had been quite frequently happened during the previous
week even in Beijing - it seems to me that the weather of this year is
some different as before?

We decided to go to the top of the Great Wall for the second half of the
night, and it was obvious that the more convenient site in a small hill
by the village would be much influenced by the mist. We went to bed
immediately after a simple but very nice supper in the family hotel,
and everyone woke up before the planed time of 22:30. It took us about
one and half an hour to reach the top of the Great Wall, where we saw
the beautiful stars above. The mist was still under the valley and there
were some clouds near the horizon in some directions.

The site seemed not bad for visual observation and I got my LM about 5.5,
which was comparable to what I could have in Xinglong. My mobile phone
could even get strong and stable signal at the top of the Great Wall,
while some of others' phone could not work. (After changing the SIM cards
it was concluded that both the handphone itself and the phone company
used were influenced.)

I took a short nap for the driving in morning while other began to observe,
then observed for two hours before dawn. The observation report is attached
at the end of this message. We stayed there until it was day break, and the 
mountains with wriggle Great Wall looked really nice...

=============================================
CMON VISUAL OBSERVATION FORM - SUMMARY REPORT
=============================================
DATE: Oct. 21/22, 2001               BEGIN: 18:55 UT    END: 21:01 UT
OBSERVER: Jin Zhu (ZHUJI)
LOCATION: Long: 116 d 31' 26" East; Lat: 40 d 28' 23" North
Place: Xizhazi, Beijing, CHINA       Elevation: about 700 m ?
RECORDING METHOD: Voice Recorder

---------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS: 3-letter code; radiant position; radiant diameter

ORI ; RA 06h 20m  DEC +17d; 5d
---------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen;    / = shower not watched.

PERIOD(UT)         FIELD          Teff   F    LM   ORI  SPO    TOTAL
18:55-19:56 RA 05h 20m  DEC +25d  1.02  1.05  5.5   11   20      31
19:56-21:01 RA 06h 40m  DEC +25d  1.01  1.05  5.7    9   22      31
---------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS                            2.03  1.05  5.6   20   42      62
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:
SHOWER   -7  -6  -5  -4  -3  -2  -1  0  +1  +2  +3  +4  +5  +6  TOTAL
ORI       0   0   0   0   0   0   3  1   4   4   2   6   0   0   20
SPO       0   0   0   0   0   4   6  7   5   6   9   5   0   0   42  
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Total     0   0   0   0   0   4   9  8   9  10  11  11   0   0   62
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SKY OBSCURED:

Percentage(%)  Duration (UT)
 05            18:55-21:01 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
DEAD TIME: NONE
BREAKS: 20:44-20:48
---------------------------------------------------------------------
LIMITING MAGNITUDE:

        STAR STAR
TIME    AREA COUNT  LM

18:58    17   11    5.64
18:59    02   06    5.15 
19:17    17   10    5.46 
19:28    17   11    5.64
19:28    02   07    5.55 

19:57    04   08    5.75 
20:02    08   11    5.73 
20:15    04   07    5.34 
20:18    08   11    5.73 
20:22    08   10    5.51 
20:38    04   08    5.75 
20:57    04   09    5.76 

MEAN LIMITING MAGNITUDE: 5.6
---------------------------------------------------------------------
METEOR DATA:

(see Original Records)

VELOCITY (VEL.) SCALE:
0 = Stationary
1 = Very Slow
2 = Slow
3 = Medium
4 = Fast
5 = Very Fast
---------------------------------------------------------------------
REMARKS:

Many thanks to Dan Xia and Min Guan for helping with data extraction
and tabulation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
<END OF REPORT>

Original records:

#  TIME SHOWER MAG SPEED TRAIN MEM
   (UT)                  (sec)

   18:55 start
   18:55 FOV: RA 05h 20m, Dec +25d
   18:55 sky obscured: 5%
01 18:55  SPO  +1    2         NTA
02 18:56  SPO  +4    2
   18:58 LM: 17/11
   18:59 LM: 02/06
03 19:03  SPO  +2    4
04 19:03  SPO  +3    3
05 19:04  ORI  +3    4
06 19:04  SPO  -2    3
07 19:04  ORI  +1    2    1s
08 19:08  ORI  +2    3
09 19:10  ORI  -1    3    1s
10 19:12  SPO  -1    3
11 19:13  SPO  +2    2
12 19:13  ORI  +4    3
13 19:15  SPO  +3    2
14 19:16  ORI  +2    2    0.5s
   19:17 LM: 17/10
15 19:19  SPO  +3    4
16 19:23  SPO  +4    3         NTA
17 19:26  ORI  +4    5
   19:28 LM: 17/11
   19:28 LM: 02/07
18 19:30  ORI  +2    3    1s
19 19:34  ORI  +0    3    1s
20 19:34  SPO  +0    3    0.5s
21 19:34  ORI  +3    4
22 19:34  SPO  +4    5
23 19:34  ORI  +4    4
24 19:39  SPO  +0    3    1s
25 19:41  SPO  +0    3 
26 19:43  SPO  +3    4
27 19:44  SPO  +0    3    1s
28 19:44  SPO  +0    3
29 19:45  SPO  -2    3
30 19:51  SPO  +1    2
31 19:53  SPO  +2    2
32 19:56  ORI  -1    3
   19:57 LM: 04/08
33 19:58  SPO  +3    3
34 19:59  SPO  -1    2    1s
   20:02 LM: 08/11
35 20:05  SPO  -2    4
36 20:07  SPO  +1    4
37 20:08  SPO  +2    2
38 20:08  SPO  +3    4
39 20:09  SPO  -1    2
40 20:14  SPO  +4    2
   20:15 LM: 04/07
41 20:16  SPO  +2    4
42 20:17  ORI  +1    5
   20:18 LM: 08/11
43 20:19  SPO  +4    5
44 20:20  ORI  +4    4
45 20:22  SPO  +1    3
46 20:22  SPO  +3    4
   20:22 LM: 08/10
   20:26 FOV: RA 06h 40m, Dec +25d
47 20:26  SPO  +3    2
48 20:26  SPO  -1    4
49 20:27  ORI  +2    3
50 20:27  ORI  +1    3
51 20:27  ORI  +1    3
52 20:32  ORI  -1    4    1s
53 20:35  SPO  -2    1
54 20:36  SPO  +0    4
   20:38 LM: 04/08
55 20:40  ORI  +4    5
56 20:43  SPO  +0    2
   20:44 pause
   20:48 resume
57 20:49  SPO  +3    5
58 20:52  SPO  -1    2
59 20:53  ORI  +4    4
60 20:55  SPO  -1    2    2s
61 20:56  SPO  +1    4
   20:56 satellite N->S +4
62 20:57  SPO  +2    3
   20:57 LM: 04/09
   21:01 end

-- 
===========================================================================
Jin Zhu                             | Tel.:  +86-10-62756286 (O)
National Astronomical Observatories |        +86-314-5520267 (Schmidt dome)
Chinese Academy of Sciences         | Pager: +86-10-96301682333
P. R. China                         | Fax :  +86-10-62765031
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Room 2919, No. 2 Science Building, CAS-PKU Beijing Astrophysics Center,
Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. CHINA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
email: zj@bac.pkudot edu.cn                  http://vega.bac.pkudot edu.cn/~zj
===========================================================================
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