Nov 20 2009 - sharply reduced Leonids

Two leonids 05:15 , 05:57 42 minutes apart. Bright star(s) top - Sirius
Pretty good and clear sky. Meteor Tally ( total 17, x10 spo,x2 PSU,x2 Leo.x1 STA, x1 xVi)

Nov 19 Leonids 2009 - 2nd "bump" in the prediction

Mikhail Maslov's Leonids Prediction Chart.

7 Leonids 5:00 to 6:30 am

Leonids still active and detected in 6am slot .... this bright one 6:21am
UT format of the x7 Leonids
21:48:04
21:41:30
21:53:60
22:18:51
22:20:41
22:21:26* ( image above)
22:2607

Leonids Nov 18 2009 am

4 am - 1 hr tally count.. lost 50% of sky coverage due to cloud..
The bright dotted on top - Sirius and below Canopus

Radiant plots of the leonids candidate.

3:34 am - Leonid streaks in cloudy sky with partial tail obscured by thicker clouds

02:56 - cloudy but gap let the meteor through ...but blocked
For those who had struggled to view from midnight till late 3:00am
the sky was really bad. Most of the dimmer meteor's tail would disappeared leaving a small portion of the luminous head.. a blip that could be easily missed.

6:05:21 - one Leonid in the 'clearer' side of the sky

6:24 am and was getting brighter,
still a fast moving tadpole shaped Leonid on the
upper right image with distinctive terminal burst!

Nov 18 '09 5:00 - 6:00 am ( UT Nov17-21:00 to 22:00 hr)
Predicted Peak ~ 5:40am - note no fireball observed in the 89 degree FOV.

Due to the weather condition - layers of thin clouds, it was difficult to see them visually as the dimmer tailed might be hidden in clouds so a tiny portion plus nucleus head left.
[ Bright Star streaks in above stacking: Top right - 'Belt' stars , Rigel (Orion), middle Sirius (Canis Major), mid lower Canopus ]

Final tally : x26 Leo x7 SPO x4 PSU, x2 daD x2 Hyd x3 misc total 44 meteors

OutLook for Leonids 2009 - 1/5 storm level ( scale down from 1/2)

Simulated view using Stellarium on Nov 18

Mikhail Maslov's Prediction chart above grid at 3 hours interval

Watch November 18 Wednesday 2 am till dawn. Time shown is in UT. Add +8 and minus 24 to get into our local time.

SM - this is for you

Two planks of woods, ball & socket head, wind nut/screws and a photo tripod completed the support structure for 'ad-hoc' wide angle night sky video patrol system.

Stick it outside the window system( minus the cables)

Nov 2009 meteors

A long trail meteor shooting from left to right.

A nice bright one .. video for both posted at youtube

Oct 30 - Orionids still there

Orionids - the bright one on the left and the tiny one on lower right.

Orionids in Singapore Oct ( 19/20, 21/22* 13/14, 15, 16,17/18 18/19 )

Oct 22 2009.
Close to dawn - x2 Ori 06:17:01, 06:17:32

ORI - 5 am bin

ORI - As the radiant continues to climb, ORI appears in southerly facing camera
FOV after 1 AM

Oct 21/22 (0 hrs - 06:0am local time ) - x20 ORI, x7 SPO, x1 oct, x1 ocu
Sky was cloudy most of the time. The highlite of the night was a visual detection of moderate speed electric blue tear drop shaped meteor around 10:58 magnitude -4 or brighter bearing AZ=200 elevation ~ 20-30. I was standing by my window looking out and saw this nice meteor coming down at 60 degree. Video system was on but no detection - blocked by the building.

UT* format
2009 Oct 21

16hr: x1
17 hr: x3
18 hr:x2
19 hr:x0
20 hr:x5
21 hr:x4
22 hr:x5

Youtube of our cloudy sky meteors

Oct 19/20 - Orionids finally return in sizable number
Radiant plot of individual Ori ( above), red portion actual path
and the composite images ( minus those with heavy cloud background) below.

UT* (ORI) Oct 19 2009
16:57
17:11,17:14
18:11, 18:32,18:24,18:54,18:56
19:06,19:25,19:52
20:03,20:05,20:15,20:31
21:19
22:07,22:10

( total : x19 ORI, X7 SPO, x1 OcU?)

F0.8 3.8mm
Plotting only the radiant verified x 6 Orionids Oct 19 am.
( total : x6 Orionids, x5 others)

Finally orionids showing up in small numbers.
Sirius and Canopus dotted in
this composite stacked image .
Time stamps (hr:min:sec) of the six AM orionids
to give you a feel of when and how bright/dim they were

Oct 19 2009
02:15:46
03:03:22
04:51:38
04:52:37
05:17:15
06:04:04

Some typical sporadic meteors creating tiny dashes in the sky.
Oct 18

Oct 17 - evening a nice sporadic meteor with multiple flares flashed past Jupiter,
while another slow moving one 'dashed' near
the lower bottom frame.

Oct 16 - x2 SPO (note Jupiter at the extreme right )Oct 15'2009 x2 SPO

Oct 13/14 , Sirius at top centre frame
Lone Orionid (top) out of the total 1+4 meteors detected.
Ori 1/5=20% , SPO 3/5=60% , Taurid 1/5= 20%

Iridium 42 Minus 7 magnitude

Moon - Jupiter  and Iridium 42 @ -7 magnitude wide angle look

25mm close look of a Pi- Eridanids

Sky was pretty cloudy so switched to a narrower FOV lens 25mm. UA indicates this is a Pi-Eri.
A wide angle look of another PiEridanid on Aug 13 below ( with star fields overlay)

slow meteors Aug 18 2009 10pm - 1am

a day after Post Perseus Peak

Perseids rate  trickles..  note the x1 early hour long trail meteor on top right hand corner.

Perseids Meteor shower members 2009 Aug 13 '09

 

Perseids meteors plots - the 'red' portion is the actual meteor path length. 

One Earthgrazer ( longest red path length) with will not satisfied the minimum 

of 2 or more path length away from radiant while the rest did.

x23 Per

x8 Spo

x2 Pi Erianus

x1 Pi

   The pc video system detected two long-trail meteors around 00:39 and at 01:43. I fished out the PDA and have a quick check on the planetarium sw. Perseids radiant was -3 degree( below horizon) and 1.5 degree then.  They resembled grazing meteors- hitting the atmosphere at shallow angle and can be seen half way around the sky. [ remind me of the grazing red Taurids competing with the Leonids]  The curvature trajectory is due to the wide angle lens distortion . Jupiter is the bright object at top of the frame.

  Then at 02:32am i saw  this text-book perfect Perseids real time in the monitor which  prompted me to visit the nearby field to watch the sky.  [Video of this bright Per  posted to youtube is available here.] The 'indoor'-soccer court still felt lukewarm from the warm afternoon, with feet facing east I looked around the sky. A thin layer of clouds and the 'garing' moon. I could make out the 4- corner star of the Great Square of Pegasus, Jupiter and the triangle formed by Formahaut and Grus beta-alpha. In between was the mag2 beta Cetus. Closer to the horizon SE was Achernar. Perseus was blocked by the housing block. Nothing exciting happen through out the 1 hour there. X1 short bright yellowish meteor flashed near Jupiter. I scribbled the time on a piece of paper. [ this meteor was also detected by the video system]. Clouds drifting in and i went home.

  Back at monitor screen a couple of meteors were already detected on my walk to the field. I watched the monitor for a while and walked to the window and gazed out. Around 5am a bright yellow short trailed meteor was seen and i checked the monitor nearby  - yes it was there. I saw two other meteors - swift , yellowish with outer greenish tint. The b/w video can never deliver the pretty sight . Fatigue soon took over me and i went back to sleep leaving the automated sky sentinel to do its work.

A composite of meteors seen from 02:30 to 04:31. Jupiter dotted in the image above. Look carefully how the top two images grazing meteor appears to 'line-up' producing a long 'artificially' long meteor in the above image.

 

Composite plot from 04-5:55

By 6 am Pers radiant had shifted 06:01-06:28 am composite stack.

Tally count
Aug 13 2009 local time. +8 UT

16 UT* /00:00-00:59 -  x1 grazing meteor
17 UT /01:00 -01:59 - x1 grazing meteor
18 UT /02:00-02:59  - x2
19 UT /03:00-03:59  - x2
20 UT /04:00-04:59  - x9
21UT /05:00-05:59  - x9
22 UT/06:00-06:30  - x7 ( dawn 0630)

Total: 31 Meteors.

* UT date  16 hr Aug 12 '09

Perseids Meteors outside my window aug 12 early AM

After 4:00am.. Pers leaving 'long' trails  & other meteors outside my window

The glaring moon and meteors Aug 3 2009

7/31 am sDA Southern Delta Aqurids trickle... unknown bright flash seen

Unknown v bright flash .. work of a satellite @ 3:37am? Watch the video here

This time the video system works w/o reboot. 

x2 Cap, x3 sDA, x4 Pau, x2 Per and 7 SPO

SDA meteor streams July 30 early am 2009

 

Plotting and selecting only the sDA. Bright spot on top edges were xple images of Jupiter.

too bad the pc reboot around 3am and interrupted the detection 3 am onwards. Plotting of all the night catch meteors x21 below.

July 29 (Wednesday) early hours meteors - sDA and Pau

The brighter members in above image :

 Left hand side from top to bottom 

x1Pau, x1Pau, x1sDA)

Right hand 

x2 Eri?)

Tally count : Total detected 20, shower members 10 ( see below).

2009-July 29

 

01:57:49 - Cap

02:31:26 - sDA
04:17:40 - sdA
04:20:00 - Pau
04:46:38 - Eri

04:51:20 - Eri
04:53:06 - sDA

05:02:05 - Per
05:13:13 - Pau

06:09:01 - Pau


SDA - x3
PAU - x3
Eri - x2
Per - x1 ( Perseids)
Cap - x1

July 26 '09 - meteors outside my window

June Meteor - SPO