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

Meteor May 08/09 '06

16 meteors ..

Polling Day Meteors - Eta Aquarids

My len was pointed quite a distance
from etaAquarids radiant
- still the long streaming meteors were detected near the 'c' shaped Corona Australis.

A plot of the three meteors confirmed
their identity - they all intersected in the
circled radiant X
Click image to for a larger view (meteors occurred @ 03:43:36, 04:16:54, 04:27:26)

A long etaAqurids, CrA at lower left corner.

Another going towards CrA

A rather bright one transversed CrA on the right mid- upper.

Frame by frame showing the meteor dragging a thin tail.
Note the arrow-shaped terminal points.

Watec 902H interior Exposed!

My main workhorse for Meteor/Satellite - Video -This camera showed sign of usage, the plastic housing for the 12V in broke and AVI connection seemed intermittent. After opening the case found a broken/ solder due to cold solder on one of the two leads ( marked 'X') for the Video IN jack. A quick touch-up with a soldering iron fixed it.

73P fragments chart Apr 30 - Early May 06

Chart showing Comet 73P fragments streaming pass the keystone in recent days.
I generated this via Minor Planet Ephemeris Service and stick in in my Skymap
CLICK to see detail From the right are fragment C,B,G,R

Meteor April 29/30 06...

Return of meteors... on a moonfree night.

While the video was doing its stuff automatically, I walked to the nearby park 1:00am to have a position fix on 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 fragmet 'c'. Using the orange red star -Arcturus as starting point - i hopped ( in 7x50s bino) to the reversed 'C' shaped Corona Borealis - and jumped to the Keystone of Hercules. It should be there .... The next trip I will bring my video gear.

(Top) Composite veiw of the x10 meteors detected, ( Bottom) a few frames showing the bright meteor resulting in a 'string-of-pearls' appearance. CLICK image to see larger version

Meteor April 27/28 '06

Meteor 4 20 AM '06

A stack from all meteors big and tiny... including a bird trail that coincided in time with one of the meteors' appearance.

Meteors April 07

Meteor April 3/4

Return of the meteors..