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[Al Degutis]

Even though the peak of this meteor shower is two days away, I didn't want to chance a possible rain out so I decided I would start a few days in advance. With the shower lasting from April 19 to May 28, the peak estimated for May 5th or May 6th. The Aquarids radiant is better positioned southern observers. Here at latitude 42°N, the radiant just starts coming over the horizon around 3-3:30am CST. I decided to go out at 3:30am and see what I can catch. It was a cold spring morning (36°F/2°C) but warmer than the last two by about 5 to 10 degrees F. The 26 day old moon was also getting ready to rise. It was a nice clear morning. Even thought the weather didn't show, the stars made it clear it was mid-spring. It was a pleasure to see Cygnus making it's way towards the zenith and the Milky Way was faint but detectible with the naked eye.

I brought out the digital camera to shot random thirty second exposures in hopes of catching a streaking meteor. Even with gloves on, my hands got cold quickly. In the course of the hour, I was able to spot 7 meteors streaks but none had a long bright train. They were bearly two seconds long and the brightest about mag 1 whereas most were between mag 2 or 3. The meteors were spotted at following times:

3:31
3:38
3:45
3:58
4:00
4:04
4:26

Around 4:10-4:15 the twilight started to wash over the sky and wash out many stars. I spotted as many satellites as I did meteors. At 4:30 I headed in to warm up in a nice hot shower. I haven't checked the digital camera but don't think I caught anything... yet.

I'm going to try and do repeat observations over the next few mornings... weather permitting.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I have never taken the effort to catch the Eta's, one being that it's still too cold, and the other...it's a silly name...

But I hope to see your digital images of some meteor trails here soon!

[Al Degutis]

Okay, upon further review I need to note that the previous morning (5 May 2005) only 4 of the 7 meteors can be classified as Eta Aquarid based on there direction, location, speed and size. The other three were sporadic meteors.

I was out all morning on 5 May 2005 to do some visual observing, astrophotography and meteor observing. The official meteor observing didn't start until 03:15am (CDT). Before that time, I spotted 6 sporadic meteors, three which were all within one minute at 02:22 just east of the zenith through Hercules. The first one was very bright (mag -1) and had a nice long (4 second) train. The following two were shorter and dimmer.

Visually I observed M104, M54, M51 and M57.

I did shot 74 pictures (30 sec exposures) of the North, East and Northeast in hopes of catching a meteor train. No luck, only an airplane.

The official meteor observing log for 5 May 2005 from 03:15 to 04:15 follows.

[Al Degutis]

The observing log for Al Degutis

Date: 5 May 2005
Location: 42deg 22' Lat 88deg 29' Long
5% clouds
Facing NE at 75deg

Number	Time (CDT)	Magnitude	Speed	Train duration	Comments
1	03:20	0	fast	3 sec	Eta Aquarid; very low and bright
2	03:26	1	fast	1 sec	Eta Aquarid
3	03:39	3	fast	1 sec	sporadic
4	03:50	2	fast	1 sec	sporadic
5	03:55	1	fast	2 sec	sporadic
6	04:04	2	fast	1 sec	sporadic

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

That's a pretty cool log of the Ets's you got there Al, and also...the use of the table format option. It looks cool too!

It's too bad that you didn't capture any meteors on camera, but perhaps you could attach a webcam to your laptop, and point it up, and let it run...

[Al Degutis]

Chicago said:

It's too bad that you didn't capture any meteors on camera, but perhaps you could attach a webcam to your laptop, and point it up, and let it run...

Great minds think alike. Although my webcam has been modified with an eyepiece adapter for planetary imaging, the digital camcorder I bought a month ago has a Night Vision mode that uses infrared to record in low light. I charged the battery, grabbed the tripod and headed outside at 2:30am CDT. What I saw was clouds. Some of the brightest stars shone through but not for long. So I have no idea if the camcorder will be able to pick up any photons from the sky, but I plan on testing that out soon.

Since I don't have a report for today, I'm sharing a message sent to the Meteor Observing mailing list:

Written by Bruce McCordy:

Meteor observing is a strangely addictive pursuit. In the late 80s I was introduced to the Perseids as a group activity to begin the new observing season every August. I still cherish those nights of social observing, however there simply aren't enough major showers on the calendar. Nowadays as I pursue the lesser showers and accept the Law of Diminishing Returns, I more often find myself alone with my thoughts, which occasionally can be interesting companions. Especially when there isn't much meteor activity to disturb them, as was the case last night.

Of course, belonging to a global network such as meteorobs means one is never truly alone, just working independently. One must report one's observations, in tabular form if one has scientifically interesting results, however on a slow night an essay will have to suffice. If whimsy isn't your style, feel free to move on to the next message.

When I set up my lawn chair somewhere on the periphery of civilization I like to think I have a front row seat to witness the interface between the heavens and Earth. The "two solitudes" presented in book-one-chapter-one-verse-one actually share a single continuum, whose connectedness can be witnessed with each flash of a meteor.

This was my second attempt to observe the eta Aquarids, having battled them to a 90-minute stalemate in 2002. In (soccer) football parlance, it was eta Aquarids nil, Bruce nil. I later made my first ever post to meteorobs ("eta Aquarids, strike one"), and one of the good denizens from this list suggested that at my somewhat extreme latitude (+53.5�) I would be doing well to see a solitary eta Aq. Certainly I have seen none since, as we have been snowed out on this date the last two years running. (Ten days before the onset of perpetual twilight, no less; we northerners have to be winter tough!)

But I am determined to experience all of the "major" showers at least once. Secondly, one of the considerations of living at a high latitude is that of the global network that monitors meteors, I figure that fairly frequently I am defining one of the limits of coverage. In this case, that would be the unfavourable limit, but who knows, maybe I'd get just one of those spectacular earthgrazers and it would be worth the effort.

I took this week's moderately clear skies and thin Moon as the go-ahead, set my alarm, made the 30-minute drive and dutifully took my spot under sub-urban skies in the wee hours this morning. I observed for the hour ending at 5 a.m. local time, which the numerologists will note was 05/05/05/05h! Suffice to say this was not a portent of anything momentous, because nothing happened.

I saw one nice meteor very early on, a 0-mag white beauty with a brief train in my direct vision right next to the Little Dipper just as I was doing my first limiting magnitude estimate. (Same thing happened during the Lyrids: both times, a sporadic.) But then, nothing. My aging eyes played a few tricks on me, a growing problem especially during slow nights. But at least one useful observation of a classic "dark meteor" which crossed my vision at a speed exceeding the fastest Leonid, therefore conclusively discounting it as anything real.

Finally I saw a brief faint flash pass north-westward through northern Cygnus. Certainly quick enough to be an eta Aq, close to the right direction, but having no previous experience with this radiant I can't say for sure I got one. Even if I did, it was unworthy of being an icebreaker, certainly no spectacular eathgrazer, just a blip. Definitely too ambiguous to call.

The sky brightened all too quickly as I cursed myself for misjudging the observing window slightly. But the solitude paid dividends, as I enjoyed the gifts of the sheltering sky: an invigorating breeze, the first clouds of morning scudding by, the rising chorus of the avian symphony, the glow of the onrushing sunrise, a pair of Canada geese taking off from a nearby lagoon, memories and anticipation of meteors if not actual meteors themselves.

I clambered back into the car at 05:05 (!), started the engine, then switched it off and declared "You know what? I'm a stubborn S.O.B." and got back out for another quarter hour. For this determined effort I was rewarded with zero additional meteors, nary an earthgrazer to be seen. And yet, I *was* rewarded: looking high overhead I watched Deneb fading into the rising twilight. At ~500 parsecs this most distant of the first magnitude stars is a hundred million times further away than the Sun, and exceeds anything else in my daily experience by a factor of a quadrillion or so. As I watched even this superluminary fade to obscurity I felt a sense of the true, trivial scale of my daily problems, which are meteoric dust compared to the marvels of the Universe.

Bruce

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I'd like to see some still captures of your webcam hunt. And he infrared would be cool too.

Hope to see them soon.

[Rocketman]

Al do you know what satellites they were? Do you remember how many, how high, where they were, and the time? Did you happen to get any on film?

Joe had mentioned that I should play around with my camera, and catch a sattelite pass. The is hard to do without a tripod due to the shaking.

So I got the idea of rigging my camera to my telescope's tripod, and it fit perfectly. I can utilize the azimuth, and elevation degrees on the tripod to hopefully get a good picture or video. The only difficult part would be lining it up with North, and South. I'll use stars for that, maybe even Jupiter.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Grady,

It would be nice to see Texas skies right here in Chicago. For the still camera, just lay it on it's back and point it straight up. If it's a film camera, (35mm), then lay it down and leave the shutter open for a few minutes. To prevent shake, cover the lens with something, a hat or anything that will block out the light- open the shutter - and then remove the covering. I used to do this during my early days of astrophotography with a bellows camera...

It's great that the vidcam fit's on your scope mount and I hope you get some cool captures. And then we can even show them off here. Even a few frames of you saying hello to the rest of us!

Anticipating your photographic efforts...

[Rocketman]

Heh.. Actually I think my little rigging job is going to do the trick. The camera fits nicely into the fasteners. Whodathunkit!

As for the weather, right now, you can have it. It's cloudy, and raining. I can't go too long without my satellites, and at this rate it's going to kill my average. It's suppose to be cloudy for the next several days.

<-- you need the "blowing smoke out the ears" mad smiley. lol