Results of the AKM Video Meteor Network - November 2001
=======================================================
November was on the one hand a little but on the other hand a very
successful month. Little successful because a number of network participants
observed the Leonid storm far away from home. Some of them had to ship
their equipment already weeks in advance or gave it to other observers.
For this reason there were fewer regular observations than usual away from
the Leonid maximum. On the other hand all travellers could witness the Leonid
storm under mostly perfect conditions. The Leonid maximum 2001 was therefore
better covered by video than any other meteor event before. The detailed
analysis of observations will take a few more months. Here we report only
preliminary numbers which may be corrected or completed later on. Incomplete
are the observations of RENJU, completely missing so far are the data from
KOSDE, MCNRO and STORO.
One group of observers went to the Bohyunsan observatory in South Korea.
There my own camera AVIS (on Nov 17 and 18 equipped with a 16mm f/2.8 lens
which yielded an lm of 5 mag at a 95 deg field of view), VK1 of Mirko Nitschke
and FAMOS of Joerg Strunk (both in their standard configuration) were in
operation. Georg Dittie operated his camera CAPCAM which was already
very successful during the 1999 Leonid storm. It used a 24mm f/1.4 lens which
resulted in a 60 deg field of view at lm better than 6 mag.
Juergen Rendtel and Wolfgang Hinz operated CARMEN and ACR1 at the Khurel
Togoot observatory in Mongolia, both in standard configuration.
Jan Hattenbach and Georg Goergen, two German amateurs from the public
observatory in Aachen, operated AKM2 as members of another German expedition
to China in Lindian. AKM1 was operated by German AKM member Thomas Kurtz and
two friends from the public observatory in Hannover (Gerd Weidemann, Michael
Theusner) in Capitan/New Mexico in the USA. Since the observing circumstances
were comparable at both sites, these two identical cameras allow a direct
comparison between the "American" and the "Asian" Leonid peak. A first
result is presented in the following graph. It shows the minute counts of
both cameras divided by the sine of the radiant altitude and averaged in
5 min bins with 2.5 min shift. It is obvious that the first peak
was significantly weaker than the second. The number of recorded Leonids
per minute was by a factor of three larger in China than in the US, whereas
there was a slight excess of non-Leonids in America. The difference between
the peaks is stronger than in the visual data analysed so far.
Errors in the shower assigment can be ruled out. However, the American
camera was looking directly at the radiant during the storm, whereas the
Chinese camera was pointed west of the radiant. We suspect that the longer
Leonid trails away from the radiant gave them a higher detection probability
which more than made up for the reduced limiting magnitude due to the
increase in angular velocity. These and other influences require a further
detailed quantitative analysis.
There were further video systems in operation in the US. The cameras of
Ondrejov observatory and EMILY of Stephen Evans were active at two observing
sites in Arizona. ELLI, the camera of Andrew Elliot that provided already
valuable data of the 1999 strom, was in operation there, too. All cameras
were pointed such that a large number of meteors were recorded from both
stations. The analysis of the aquired data will probably take several months.
Andre Knoefel's VIDEOMET stayed in Germany and was to be operated by members
of the public observatory in Essen. Andre himself joined the ESA/ESTEC
expedition to Australia which was lead by Detlef Koschny. They took a whole
battery of video systems with them. An overall of five cameras with fields
of view between 15 and 70 deg and partly equipped with objective gratings
were operated for a full week. Here the analysis has just begun, too.
Rob McNaught was also on a trip in his Australian home. Among other systems
he operated a special camera with extremely small field of view to search
for differences in the radiant position of individual dust trails. Steve
Quirk, however, stayed at home and was clouded out.
I'm quite sure that we will gain new knowledge during the analysis of this
excellent video material, and that one or the other surprise is still
waiting for us. This list of video systems above is certainly not complete
but gives already an idea of the amount of video footage that could be
secured during the 2001 Leonid storms.
1. Observers
============
Code Name Place Camera FOV LM Nights Time Meteors
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BENOR Benitez S. Maspalomas TIMES4 (1.4/50) 20 dg 8 mag 8 65.6 h 269
EVAST Evans L. Thurlow EMILY (1.8/28) 36 dg 5 mag 2 12.5 h 394
KNOAN Knoefel Duesseldorf VIDEOMET (0.75/50) 20 dg 7 mag 1 0.9 h 2
MOLSI Molau Aachen AVIS (2.0/35) 40 dg 5 mag 16 93.1 h 2955
NITMI Nitschke Dresden VK1 (0.75/50) 20 dg 8 mag 4 19.8 h 560
QUIST Quirk Mudgee SSO-WAT1 (0.85/25) 13 dg 5 mag 16 122.7 h 173
RENJU Rendtel Marquardt CARMEN (1.8/28) 28 dg 5 mag 4 22.4 h 76
SPEUL Sperberg Salzwedel AKM1 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 1 9.9 h 121
STRJO Strunk Leopoldshoehe FAMOS (2.0/28) 45 dg 5 mag 6 45.8 h 266
AKM other amateurs AKM1 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 1 6.9 h 361
AKM2 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 2 13.7 h 909
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Overall 25 413.3 h 6086
2. Observing Times (h)
======================
Nov 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
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BENOR - - - - - - - - - 9.2 - 8.2 7.3 7.7 -
EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KNOAN 0.9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOLSI 9.8 5.2 10.4 - 4.2 0.6 - - 1.0 9.7 - 3.9 - 5.1 8.1
NITMI - - - - 1.2 - - - - - - - - - -
QUIST - 8.6 8.9 8.8 8.7 - - - 8.4 - 8.8 8.9 7.8 - -
RENJU 4.7 - - - - - - 0.9 6.0 10.8 - - - - -
SPEUL - - - - - - - - 9.9 - - - - - -
STRJO 2.0 - - - - - - - 12.5 8.3 - - - - -
AKM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Sum 17.4 13.8 19.3 8.8 14.1 0.6 - 0.9 37.8 38.0 8.8 21.0 15.1 12.8 8.1
Nov 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR 9.3 4.8 - - - 8.9 - 10.2 - - - - - - -
EVAST - 6.2 6.3 - - - - - - - - - - - -
KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOLSI 6.8 7.9 8.2 8.1 - - 1.8 - - - - - 2.3 - -
NITMI - 5.1 8.5 5.0 - - - - - - - - - - -
QUIST 8.9 8.9 - 5.5 7.9 8.7 - 5.9 - - - - - 6.7 1.3
RENJU - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEUL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STRJO - 8.0 7.0 8.0 - - - - - - - - - - -
AKM - - 6.9 - - - - - - - - - - - -
- 6.6 7.1 - - - - - - - - - - - -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum 25.0 47.5 44.0 26.6 7.9 17.6 1.8 16.1 - - - - 2.3 6.7 1.3
3. Results (Meteors)
====================
Nov 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR - - - - - - - - - 34 - 35 13 7 -
EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KNOAN 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOLSI 63 25 54 - 14 2 - - 5 28 - 23 - 81 72
NITMI - - - - 3 - - - - - - - - - -
QUIST - 21 20 9 3 - - - 11 - 9 28 19 - -
RENJU 13 - - - - - - 8 9 46 - - - - -
SPEUL - - - - - - - - 121 - - - - - -
STRJO 1 - - - - - - - 12 7 - - - - -
AKM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum 79 46 74 9 20 2 - 8 158 115 9 86 32 88 72
Nov 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR 38 27 - - - 65 - 50 - - - - - - -
EVAST - 60 334 - - - - - - - - - - - -
KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOLSI 64 204 2090 223 - - 3 - - - - - 4 - -
NITMI - 138 299 120 - - - - - - - - - - -
QUIST 6 2 - 3 12 19 - 7 - - - - - 3 1
RENJU - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEUL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STRJO - 23 208 15 - - - - - - - - - - -
AKM - - 361 - - - - - - - - - - - -
- 194 715 - - - - - - - - - - - -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum 108 648 4007 361 12 84 3 57 - - - - 4 3 1
Sirko Molau, 2001/12/18