NightEvents by Video Patrol

Friday, October 30, 2009

Oct 30 - Orionids still there

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

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

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%

Monday, September 28, 2009

Iridium 42 Minus 7 magnitude

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

Friday, August 21, 2009

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)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

slow meteors Aug 18 2009 10pm - 1am

Friday, August 14, 2009

a day after Post Perseus Peak

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

Thursday, August 13, 2009

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