Geminids Dec 13 2006 - AM hrs

Geminids Active! I left my lens at Elevation of 52 d and AZ of 208d(SW) and got x17 meteors from 0 hrs to 6:30am. Majority of them are GEMs - Geminids...

Dec 12 ( x2) nice meteors in 25mm lens FOV

Nov30 '06 - x26 meteors

26 meteors were detected ( 0 hr- 06 hr)
The east-to-west drift of the stars across static video camera's FOV( field of vision) was very apparent in this stacked x26 still images. Meteors come and go and those crossed the FOV got registered.

cloudy sky meteors (2)

23:0528, 23:08:56 ... two meteors zapped pass the cloudy sky within 3 minutes of each other in the 10x12 degree FOV...

Nov 19 2006

A stack of 4 meteors streaks and x2 satellite flashes. ( A day before 11/18am I had similar detection of a bright naked-eye flasher satellite from 'below' Rigel towards Sirius. Perhaps the same object at work) 11/19 sky was bad.


A nice slow short tail meteor transversed diagonally in 6mm FOV. Note the varying light envelope as it descended through our protective atmosphere.

First Sprite detected early am Nov 02 '06

I thought the heavy afternoon downpour helped to clear up the sky and let some meteors through. So I left the 6mm- watec 902H video system running.

Result: a handful of meteors and other 'white-outs' due to lightning flashes. The detection sw was aborted prematurely as I ran out of hard disk space around 4:15am. But X 1 frame stood out and I recognised it right away - it was a Sprite!

This is a single frame occurrence 4/100 sec

Altitude ~ 20 degree, Azmuith= ~194 degree seen from Woodlands. Stars were twinkling then. A 'daylight view' insert to show approx detection position.

CLICK image for at a larger view. VIDEO added. To read more on sprite captured by highspeed camera elsewhere

Oct 03 - Luna continued

I have to wait for
the zenith moon to set
a little before the luna
can appear
in my c8.

Elongated crater - SchillerGassandi and Mare Humorum

'Star field' in luna...?
just imagine the dark areas are dark nebula...
the bright tiny craters are stars...

Clavius again... just love the arc of craterlets inside...

Tycho rays..

Oct 02 '05 Luna continued

Vallis Alpes -'Alpine Valley' and Plato below

Note the sharp shadow at Cape Laplace .
The 'C' shaped formed the Sinus Iridum

Clavius

Luna - Revisited in video

Oct 02 - Copernius and the fused twin tiny crater of Fauth /Fauth A

Copernicus at edge of terminator

Upper side down - Rabbit's ears
can you locate the comet-like ejecta ray of Messier..

Clavius with its craterlets inside and the heavy shadows.

The trio craters - Catharina, Cyrillus and Theophilus ( left to right)

C8 prime focus + mintron + sony walkman+ UFOcapture. Bad sky but the lunar features were plainly visible in the video walkman's screen.

Sep 21 '06 - 6mm Video meteors

Iridium 24, 97-082B two bright flashes

Two round dots were seen on adjacent frame. Video playback indicates the work of a flashing sat. Using ID, the object was ID to be Iridium #24 or 97-082B. At 6mm FOV only very bright flashes were detected.

docked STS-115 & ISS Sept 12

ISS+STS-115 sailed pass the
Teapot (above) slowly losing brighness
before disappearing into Earth's shadow (below).

Iridium Satellite Flare tonight 8/21

Iridium Satellite #75 put out a bright flare (reflection of sunlight) tonight outside my window! Click image to see the time stamp of the event. I calibrated my watch to the seconds by calling 1711 just before the flare and positioned my video camera exactly as i like the flare to transverse the FOV.
You too can find out such flares in your location www.heavens-above.com

Meteors Aug 13 ( 0hr-6:30am) 6mm video lens

Sky was bad for visual so i left a 6mm f1.4 lens/watec-90wH outside the window running Sontaco's UFOCaputure.
In 6 1/2 hours of detection a
total of 17 meteors were detected
even in this poor sky.
The single image above was
a composite stack
( using IRIS - add_max2 command on each fit image) Click any image for a closer look.

Sunday AM I wanted to find out how many of these were perseids - if any..
So I ran UFOanlayser and
here is a screen-capture
showing the plots of x11 perseids and others.
Imagine if i have a clearer better sky....

Well better than nothing ...

Meteor Aug 6/7 2006

27 meteors detected!

Meteor Aug4/5 2006

Composite of the meteors detected from midnight to 6:30am Aug 05 '06. A slow bright meteor went out of the FOV at top centre at 05:25:28am ( 25 mm lens /wat 902H / UfocaptureV2)

Aug 02 Meteors '06

Composite image Aug 02 0:00 hrs onwards

THE? (theta heculids)

The 25 mm lens was centre ~ on Elevation 48 degree , AZ=166.

Early evening meteor 6/17

Crux was shinning brightly tonight, I started my meteor monitoring earlier tonight. @ 20:52:49 a bright meteor appeared( above). I deinterlaced the image showing individual head of the meteor in its passage. ( the tail was obscured by the larger size of meteor head) . CLICK image to view larger version.
I changed my FOV and directed my lens towards Antares in Sco. Minutes later a pretty meteor grazed by.At a meteor left a spear-like profile 0:59:23

Meteor June 09 2006

Cloudy sky but two of the meteors had interesting brightness envelopes.

Meteor June 8 2006

NOAA 8 tumbling in Crux

NOAA 8 tumbling slow past NE Crux. The sensitive UFOCaptureV2 manage to pick the slow rise to flash cycle.

NOAA 6 79-057A double flashes

Close to 20:30 - I noticed a odd-shaped bright 'blip' registered near the right hand edge of the frame. AVI played back revealed the work of a bright double flashes from a passing Sat - NOAA 6 or 79-057A.

Meteors and Bright Flare in the sky

May 27 2006 05:44:55 am
a single x1 bright flare was detected, much brighter than the Jupiter -2.4

73P - C, B Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann

I arrived at the field around 5:00am. Sky was cleared at zenith where Altair presided, low clouds in the East. I scanned the NE mid elevation, trying to make out the Pegasus's Square. Using one branch of the 'Pegasus' Square, I star-hopped to the area where 73p fragment C supposed to be located. But in 7x50s view, no fuzzy ball jumped out at me from hazy sky. I returned home to get a map printout and brought my usual tripod/Mintron/lens setup.

Nothing was detected at x12 integration. Then I pumped up and maxed the integration - the unmistaken tiny tadpole finally showed up at 100mm end! It was fragment C. I let the Video Walkman run for a few minutes and shifted the FOV 'lower' to locate fragment B. Another fainter tadpole found. Venus appeared above the orws of African Tulips meanwhile early joggers pounding the pavement. This event is unique in a way - how often do you get to see fragments from the same comet!

Got some spare time to burn so I restacked
both images using 200 frames to bring out the 'tadpole' a bit better. Both tails are pointing in the same general direction as expected.

Meteor May 20 - AM 3.8mm lens

01:37,03:33,03:38,04:02 meteors
even at this large FOV the milkyway
is faintly visible in the video.

May 18 '06 - Flashing Sat in Crux

A flashing/ tumbling sats drifted into my FOV

Running skymap with latest TLE - revealed the candidate to be
Molniya 3-10 or 78-095A. From the 4 time stamp created in UFOCapture V2 - the period is ~ 12.5880 seconds. Video ( uploaded 5/22) here (1.89Mb)

Meteor May 12 '06

Trying out a much larger FOV lens

3.8mm f/0.8 aspheric lens with watec 902H

This lens had seen hundreds of Leonids
( in a desert in Jordan/ on top of a high mountain S Korea)

Close to 89 degree FOV -
8 meteors were deteced in between
lightning flashes from
04:12 - 05:43am