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(meteorobs) Lost data and few Ursids in East Georgia
While I did have an enjoyable two-hour session observing Ursid
activity Saturday morning, it appears
I'll have no real data to show for it. My old faithful recorder died during
the Leonid peak last month, and in the darkness I pressed "play" rather than
"record" on my new machine. So my two hours of meteor data for the Ursids ,
were, ahem, "performed live" rather than recorded.
While the Ursids were a bit of a bust here, I had a good
sporadic count, taped or not. I probably saw some twenty meteors including
4 or 5 URS, the first hour from 3:16 to 4:22 AM local time. I had a very
brief flashback to last months peak rates when at 3:27 a flurry of four
meteors occured within 15 seconds...the first three appeared within seconds
of each other, the fourth about ten seconds after the third. None were
Ursids, as best I could tell, and they didn't appear to be related to each
other, at least not all four.
Facing northeast at the Bear's hind leg under a transparent 6.27
LM sky, I saw prabably 12 SPO's and 4 or so Ursids the second period. The
Ursids were exceptionally faint, +4 and fainter though a couple were a bit
brighter. I saw no negative magnitude meteors during the session. One of
the brighter URS did leave a brief train.
I'd be willing to bet the Ursid activity was a lot higher at
fainter magnitudes. I kept seeing, and discounting, faint flashes during my
session, probably faint Ursids????
Kim Youmans
Robert Lunsford wrote:
> I had a short session this morning to view the Ursid activity. The
> problem was that I did not see a single Ursid in the 2 hours I was out!
> This is very odd for the night of maximum activity. Reports from further
> east indicate falling rates so it seems that there was nothing left for
> me to see! It would be interesting to see what was seen of this shower
> from European longitudes. My understanding is that many European sites
> had bad weather so we may be in the dark as to the 2001 Ursid activity
> curve. There was two nice representatives of the Northern Apex and a few
> sporadics to keep me awake. Certainly not very impressive totals for a
> mid December night.
>
> December 22, 2001
>
> 1111-1214 UT 1.00 6.75 0 ANT 0 URS 0 NPX 0 SPX 5 SPO 5 TOTAL
>
> 1214-1317 UT 1.00 6.46 0 ANT 0 URS 2 NPX 0 SPX 6 SPO 8 TOTAL
>
> TOTALS: 2.00 6.60 0 ANT 0 URS 2 NPX 0 SPX 11 SPO 13 TOTAL
>
> The first column gives the period watched stated in Universal Time (UT)
> which is PST + 8 hours. The second column gives the percent of that
> particular hour actually spent observing the sky. Time was lost for
> plotting and data entry tonight. The third column gives the average
> limiting magnitude estimated during each period. The last several
> columns list the activity seen during each period. I was facing north at
> an altitude of 60 degrees during the entire session. No breaks were
> taken. ANT = Antihelion radiant, URS = Ursids, NPX = Northern Apex, SPX
> = Southern Apex, and SPO = Sporadics (random activity).
>
> Location: Deerhorn Valley 116 45' 21" W 32 41' 21" N ELE = 667 m
>
> Bortle Scale Estimate: Class 2 (Typical Truly Dark Sky Site)
>
> Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity: 32 F (0 C) 64%
> Ending " " " 31 F (-1 C) 80%
>
> MAGNITUDES:
>
> NPX: -2 (1) +1 (1) +2 (0) +3 (0) +4 (0) +5 (0) +6 (0) AVE: -0.50
> SPO: 0 (0) +1 (0) +2 (4) +3 (3) +4 (3) +5 (1) +6 (0) AVE: +3.09
>
> Bob Lunsford
> San Diego, CA USA
> The archive and Web site for our list is at http://www.meteorobs.org
> If you are interested in complete links on the 2001 LEONIDS, see:
> http://www.meteorobs.org/storms.html
> To stop getting email from the 'meteorobs' list, use the Web form at:
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The archive and Web site for our list is at http://www.meteorobs.org
If you are interested in complete links on the 2001 LEONIDS, see:
http://www.meteorobs.org/storms.html
To stop getting email from the 'meteorobs' list, use the Web form at:
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