Geminids Dec 2013

Geminids Dec 2013

 Sky was patchy with clouds. Geminids surfaced shortly after midnight local time. Then a Gem fireball appear at 0:00:45:38. (UT Dec 13 15:15).  A raw count from the tiny streaks include a x5 time increase of Gem count compare  with the day before.

Geminids fireball franked by two dimmer Gems.  To show the actual progression of the fireball I created a few time spaced snapshots. Notice the tiny short tail behind the plasma head as it progressed towards the building roof top.

This is how the ufocapture software will create the light envelope as the fireball progress from beginning to end.

The bonus before the above Gem fireball event was this EVEN brighter sporadic fireball.

Fire ball on the South- Western horizon.

Geminids Dec 11 2013 - Sirius and Canopus dotted in the above summed image. Constellation of Gemini is not visible in the FOV.  The ZHR rate according to IMO is 10-15 but this number jumped to 100+ in dark locations.

The Progression of the sporadic Fireball is sequenced below.

ETA Aquarids Yishun Singapore 2013 ( updated )

2013 May  -  ETA Aquarids ( Comet Halley Debris hitting our upper atmosphere ) Returning to our early AM sky.

Some expectation - Outside my SW facing kitchen window, the video  near 90 FOV cover nicely the rising radiant in Aquarius and I expect the main streams running from long length EAST - WEST. Opposite block in early evening the Crux and Pointers should rise and  hidden from view as they rotated out of the view.

May 5 - Sunday Early AM managed to get  x20 over meteors - most of them were ETAs. The critical time is 4 - Dawn. Sky cleared up enough for the meteors to be detected in the system.


May 6 Monday early am. Counting over 40 meteors !!!!

 By Sunday evening you wont believe the sky will clear up will you? Close to 11 pm I was presented with overcast sky but the weather pattern in May 5 early am told me otherwise**. I put out the video and never mind the 100% over cast sky. I was right!!! Bagging a respectful bright ETAs and tiny ones. ** extrapolation of the weather pattern from just one or two nights (24-48 hrs) ago proved to be pretty accurate. with video you can purposely forced a time duration captured.

....Starting with ETA streaming across the sky as expected radiant in the EAST.

The above  frame i select the small tiny ETA, the bright one were chosen to show in the image below.

In one hour the bright ones.... 21 UT May 05 2013 Singapore

Movie here 

MAY 7 Morning Singapore ...

Then on May 6 Night after seeing Mikiyo's prediction of  the possibility of another trail hitting around my 5 am time frame i decided to put out the video on a folded wooden plateform and see what can i capture.  The activity seems to drop back to still 17 meteors.  See stacked images below. 

and  the last bright one at 6:30am as dawn approaches.

41 Daphne occults a 4.8 Mag star March 31 2013 Sunday

On Sunday ... March 31 2013 Somewhere in CT Road.... we were prepared to chase a thin strip of shallow casted by an asteriod eclipsing a mid brighenss star - a line of sight events.

 

 5:00 pm   Heavy rain in Yishun. Been cloudy for the past days.

 5:30 pm   Rain stop ... Jurong East here i come...

 6:30 pm   Meet up Albert in Astro,  SW installation for digital recording to laptop took a while.

 8:00 ++ pm  Quick bite and heading  for his place.

 8:30 - 12:30pm   Main scope / piggy back scope alignment etc - Wiring up the GPS, video out to Sony camcorder using the LCD as monitor , focusing the scope, Y out the digital recording in Laptop.
Coffee breaks,  listening to the frogs.... A few stars were visible - Procyon ... and moon rising in the east.  Tree were blocking the low eleation in the east.

1:30 pm  Back to the scope. The scope is slewed to the exact spot to track the rising 4.8 Mag star.

3:30 pm  Pack up,  heading home.  Nice warm feeling the sky didnt let us down and I saw my first occultation and my toy is working since these years.
 
I brought along my stuff:
Watec 902H ultimate
Kiwi time inserter Box
Sony Camcorder DCR TRV-820E
Cables, extension code ( indoor so no need portable 12V DC batteries)

Occultation Map :  Notice the occultation narrow strip heading mostly over non land mass. W Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore lies within this strip.

 

Just found out the 902H watec i had does not have a 'C' thread so finally swapped to my other newer Watec 902H Ultimate. The watec is coupled to the piggy back white tube Takahashi refractor. Due to the concern of slewing scope tearing the cable the Kiwi time inserter and GPS were later put on the top red column flat surfaces and the AC powercord were tie-wrapped to the main scope handle. The ladder is 7-foot.

The recording is ON. We glue our eyes to the sole star watching the time stamp dances in the footage. Suddenly the star is gone and 6 seconds seem short and the star reappear again.

Star disappears!

Back home i use a P&S and playing back the Sony camcorder, download a player that allows me to frame stepping. This is the frame just after the 4.8 mag star blank off.

 

The disappearing act lasts 6 seconds or so... here the star reappear.