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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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