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RE: (meteorobs) Geminids13/14 Dec - Lots of them!

At 18:01 14/12/01 +0100, you wrote:
> > All the Geminids i saw appeared white to me ...no color what
> > so ever,and
> > there were no fireballs brighter than -4 mag ...in fact the brightest
> > meteors were nearly always seen close to the horizon,and very often
> > around  -1/-2 mag!
>
>The brightest I recorded were some -2's. 5 seconds before the end of a break
>I did see a -3. We also noticed the large number of brighter meteors near
>the horzion. In fact, we were calling them Horizonids. Yet, the ones we saw
>above the western horizon must have been overhead for you :).

Many appeared to me to be low in the SW,and W also,so somewhere out over 
the Atlantic i guess! ...around 4-4.30 i saw a few lovely -3s which 
traveled 20 -25 degrees directly downwards from the radiant which was still 
very high at the time(60-65 degrees). The single -4 i did see,passed 
straight through Orion,and would have made a great photograph i think(had 
my camera been pointing in that direction at the time!)

> > Despite not having recorded any data,i'm pretty sure i
> > observed an outburst
> > last night ...hopefully others will be able to confirm this!
>
>Hmm, I think it was the regular peak. Though my own data shows maximum
>activity between 1 and 3 UT, so before the predicted peak of 4 UT.

Your data is probably much more reliable than my impressions from rough 
counts:) ...i think i may try recording observations to MD if i can find a 
speaking clock.

There was strong activity for me during this time also,but there were also 
good bursts of activity after 04 UT although the lulls in activity became 
longer. I had a few mishaps later on which cost me a fair bit of observing 
time(~04:30 UT),when trying to reposition one of my tripods,due to the 
cables for the anti-dew heaters being tangled round the tripod leg - i 
managed to yank one of my cameras off its (not very high thankfully) 
platform,and onto the fairly stony dirt track ...i have yet to examine the 
damage(if any),but it took me 10 or 15 minutes to sort out the mess and get 
back to observing.

It happened again later on,this time snapping off the thread which attaches 
the cable release to the camera and forcing me to struggle (still in my 
sleeping bag:) to the car,to find a new cable release for the camera. 
Luckily i had bought 2 new ones just before i left London to replace the 
two i managed to break observing the Leonids!

Troubles aside,it was one of the most enjoyable showers i have observed in 
past 3 years,since i became interested in them. This year has been very 
good to me(despite being clouded out during Persied max) !!

Leo



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