Grasslands Observatory: Meteors |
|
The Leonids at the Grasslands Observatory November 18-19, 2002 |
The night was clear and cold (~2 degrees Celsius), but the Moon
was very bright, being nearly full. The Leonid Shower was good
but far from the meteor storm predicted. Its performance was
poor in comparison with 2001 and 1998. There were fewer meteors,
and they were much fainter overall. There were no fireballs. The
shower was most intense from 10:30 to 11:00 UT.
James McGaha and
our guests estimated the hourly rate was probably 100-150 at
this time. Prior to this peak, the rate was considerably less
than that. The images below were taken with a new Nikon D100
digital camera set at ASA 1600. The images of the observatory
and the observers were taken with a 2.5 second exposure through
Phil Farnam's 20 mm f/2.8 Nikon lens. While these images look
like daylight photos, they were taken with the light of the
Moon. Notice the stars in the sky!
The first GIF image shows
meteors radiating from Leo. It consists of ten 30-second
exposures with the 20 mm Nikon lens set at f/3.5. On the animated
GIF, the Sickle of Leo is present in the lower left hand corner.
Nearby is Jupiter. The second animated GIF image shows a 5.5 x
4.0 degree field of the sky to the West of Leo. It was taken by
James McGaha with an ST-237 CCD camera with an attached 50 mm
f/1.4 lens. Six thirty-second exposures were put together to
show a series of Leonids.
tbh
|
|
|
|
|
The Grasslands Observatory ~ 11:00 pm MST. Jupiter rising over the Eastern horizon. |
Group Photo at 2:00 am MST November 19, 2002 |
The Rizk family |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Getting ready for meteor imaging |
Phil's Imaging Platform |
Phil Farnam getting ready for imaging |
Leonids 2002 Animated GIF Image 1
Leonids 2002 Animated GIF Image 2
|
|
|
The Leonids at the Grasslands Observatory November 17-18,
2001 |
There was scattered haze and light clouds which hindered the
viewing. Nevertheless, the Leonids were spectacular. James
McGaha and I and our guests saw continuous meteors from 9:40 UT
until sunrise. The shower was most intense between 10 and 11 UT.
At times, I could see 2 meteors per second, and I guess the
hourly rate averaged 1-2000 with brief bursts equaling a rate of
7-8000 per hour.
There were many fireballs and many long lasting
trains. The number of fireballs was less than in prior Leonid
showers, but this was the best meteor shower I have ever seen.
The meteor images below were taken with Kodak ASA 400 print film
with exposures of ~ 15 minutes. The negatives were scanned and
converted into TIff files.
The Orion and Aldeberan fireballs
images were taken by myself and James McGaha with a 50 mm f/1.4
lens. We piggybacked a total of 4 cameras onto the side of the
24-inch telescope at the Grasslands Observatory. The Aldeberan
fireball image shows Aldeberan and Saturn at the top of the
image, the fireball in the lower right hand corner, and
Betelgeuse in the lower left hand corner. The Orion meteor
images were taken with a 20 mm f/4 lens. The wide angle image was
taken with a 17 mm f/3.5 lens. The images of our guests were
taken by James McGaha with a digital camera.
|
|
|
|
|
Aldeberan Fireball |
Betelgeuse Fireball |
Orion Meteors |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tim and Telescope |
|
Orion Fireball |
Wide Angle View |
|
|
|
|
|
Derald Nye's Set-up |
Derald Nye with Digital Camera |
The Rizk Family |
|
|
|
The Moon |
The Planets |
Back to top
|
|