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(meteorobs) Perseids 2003 video surprise
I've finally had an opportunity to watch on a big TV set a 93-
minutes video recording made during this year's full moon-lit
Perseids maximum night while vacationing in Turkey - and to my
surprise I could count no fewer than 43 meteors, despite a limiting
magnitude for stars of not much better than 3.0 mag. The
experience was suprisingly gratifying (esp. compared to visual
observing under these rotten sky conditions) as on can crank up
the gamma of the TV set and also rewind to confirm the reality of
faint meteors. Here then are the details (in an arbitrary format;
this is my first-ever meteor video report):
Location: Yaliciftlik near Bodrum, southwestern Turkey, not much above sea level
Time: Aug. 12/13 22:40 to 0:13 UTC
Camera: Mintron 12V1C-EX , used with integration factor 4
Lens: Computar 6 mm f/0.8 (fov diagonal roughly 70 degrees)
Recording: S-video signal fed into miniDV camcorder running in longplay mode
Field: bordered by southern Perseus, Aries, northeastern Cetus
and western Auriga (the only unobstructed field available from my
balcony where I could get power for the camera and the moon was well
out of the picture)
Stars visible: to roughly 3.3 mag. (there is a distinct background
gradient, with brighter sky towards the moon, but the lim. mag.
doesn't seem to be affected much
Deep sky objects visible: Plejades as a fuzzy elongated blob, Hyades
V shape just barely above the noise
Meteors (Perseids and a few others) detected visually during one
run (some intervals were also re-checked, with no further detections): 43
22:40 to 22:50 UTC: 5
22:50 to 23:00 UTC: 1
23:00 to 23:10 UTC: 3
23:10 to 23:20 UTC: 6
23:20 to 23:30 UTC: 6
23:30 to 23:40 UTC: 5
23:40 to 23:50 UTC: 5
23:50 to 00:00 UTC: 4
00:00 to 00:10 UTC: 8
(00:10 to 00:13 UTC: 0)
As usual (?) the intervals between the individual meteors varied
widely, from 8 seconds (in two cases) to a whopping 15 minutes
without a single meteor (from 22:50:30 to 23:05:30 UTC) -
statistical fluctuations at work or hints of a fine structure in the
ZHR profile as well as clustering? I'm wondering whether there
are any other - video and/or visual - data sets obtained in this part
of the world at this time, to check for that.
And I'm wondering how much better the Mintron/Computar
system could have done in moon-free skies; the automatic
gain/iris control obviously was not nearly at max. In any case I'm
now positive about a Perseids expedition in 2004, to a place with
dark skies, few clouds in August and electrical power, to go after
either the traditional peak or one of the suspected extra peaks
discussed in the 2004 IMO Shower Calender - any suggestions or
invitations ...?
Daniel Fischer
Koenigswinter
Germany
P.S.: A compressed version of the tape (only the meteors plus-
minus a few seconds) will be brought to the IMC later this month -
see http://aipsoe.aipdot de/~rend/2003imc.html for details.
P.P.S.: Another Mintron experiment during the 2003 Perseids is reported
in http://www.astrofotodot net/AFOTO/perseiden2003/perseiden2003.htm
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