Results of the IMO Video Meteor Network - November 2004
=======================================================
November 2004 was a typical late autumn month with only rare clear skies.
A stable high pressure system established over central Europe towards the
end of the month, but it came with ground and high fog and prevented at
many sites any observation until the second half of December. So it comes
as no surprise, that nobody collected more than 16 observing nights. Even
though the nights are long at this time of the year, only two observer
logged more than a hundred hours of observing time.
The Leonids are without doubt the most interesting meteor shower of November.
Even though the times of meteor storms are over, there were a number of
dust trails supposed to present zenithal rates of a few ten meteors per hour
in 2004. Of special interest was the 1333 trail, which was predicted to cause
Leonid activity well before the usual activity period on November 8/9. Beside
the "regular" peak of the background component on the morning of November 17,
two more maxima were predicted for the morning and evening of November 19 (but
not in the European observing window). And what of all this could be found
in the video data?
To answer this question, I first selected all observations after midnight UT;
times before midnight were ignored. Only after midnight, the Leonid radiant
is high enough in the European night sky to produce noticable activity.
Next the activity period of the Leonids was extended to all of November, and
the meteor shower assignment of all observation was recomputed. Finally, all
observations of a night were summarized, and the ratio between the number of
Leonids and sporadic meteors was computed as an estimate of the meteor shower
activity. The result is shown in the next figure, where only nights with
at least ten sporadic meteors are displayed.
Stane Slavec was the first to clearly detect Leonid activity as early as
November 7/8 (5 LEO, 27 SPO), followed by a longer lull. On November 8/9,
there was only one camera active in the morning, and it started after midnight
UT such that the period of the 1333 dust trail could not be covered.
On November 12/13 the activity increased clearly (14 LEO, 28 SPO). It briefly
reduced in the follwing night (37 LEO, 149 SPO), but it stayed at the same high
level (ratio of 1:2 between Leonids and sporadic meteors) between November
16/17 and 19/20. From November 20/21 to 24/25 there was still a clear
sign of Leonid activity (9 LEO and 35 SPO in the last night), but after that
the shower effectively vanished.
Bottom line: None of the predicted dust trail could be identified, but it is
still amazing over what a long period of time the Leonids are noticable in
the video data.
1. Observers
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Code Name Place Camera FOV LM Nights Time Meteors
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BENOR Benitez-S. Maspalomas TIMES5 (0.8/6) 50 dg 3 mag 13 116.1 h 108
EVAST Evans Moreton RF1 (1.2/12) 20 dg 3 mag 2 18.0 h 86
KACJA Kac Kostanjevec METKA (0.8/8) 42 dg 2 mag 10 67.9 h 124
MOLSI Molau Seysdorf AVIS2 (1.4/50) 60 dg 6 mag 8 36.6 h 509
MINCAM1 (1.4/12) 35 dg 4 mag 15 73.7 h 93
SLAST Slavec Ljubljana KAYAK1 (1.8/28) 50 dg 4 mag 9 64.1 h 342
STRJO Strunk Leopoldshoehe MINCAM2 (0.8/8) 42 dg 4 mag 16 82.2 h 263
MINCAM3 (0.8/6) 55 dg 3 mag 10 60.3 h 258
UEBST Ueberschaer Aachen MIMO (0.95/25) 13 dg 4 mag 5 37.1 h 72
YRJIL Yrjola Kuusankoski FINEXCAM (0.8/6) 50 dg 3 mag 16 102.9 h 325
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Sum 29 658.9 h 2180
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 - - - - - 7.0 11.3 6.5 - - - - 7.7 - -
EVAST - - - 8.5 - - - - - - - 9.5 - - -
KACJA - - - - - - - - - - - 3.1 - - -
MOLSI - - - - - - - 0.7 - - - - - 10.8 2.7
- - - 2.8 0.8 0.8 - 2.9 4.4 - - - 1.0 12.6 5.2
SLAST - - - - - - 7.3 - 1.9 - - - - - -
STRJO 0.8 - 2.0 5.2 5.7 5.6 2.8 9.2 - 2.7 9.3 0.6 - 9.4 -
- - - - 3.2 5.6 2.5 10.3 - - 8.1 - - 6.4 -
UEBST - - - - - - - 5.4 - - 6.3 - - - -
YRJIL 9.5 6.1 1.6 - 1.0 - - - 3.5 - - - 2.1 6.4 9.4
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Sum 10.3 6.1 3.6 16.5 10.7 19.0 23.9 35.0 9.8 2.7 23.7 13.2 10.8 45.6 17.3
Nov 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
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BENOR 11.0 - - 11.5 9.4 11.8 11.8 3.8 8.1 - - - - 10.8 5.4
EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KACJA 6.1 6.1 - 6.1 6.0 6.1 - - 6.1 6.0 10.7 11.6 - - -
MOLSI - - - - 6.0 0.7 - 8.9 5.2 1.6 - - - - -
- - - 2.8 3.5 3.4 - 11.7 13.5 7.6 - 0.7 - - -
SLAST 5.7 3.6 - 9.7 11.3 11.2 5.8 0.8 6.8 - - - - - -
STRJO - - - 1.3 1.2 - - 10.2 9.1 7.1 - - - - -
- - - - - - - 11.7 10.0 2.5 - - - - -
UEBST - - - - 8.3 - - 7.6 9.5 - - - - - -
YRJIL 8.6 10.8 3.3 12.8 4.6 9.2 - - 0.9 13.1 - - - - -
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Sum 31.4 20.5 3.3 44.2 50.3 42.4 17.6 54.7 69.2 37.9 10.7 12.3 - 10.8 5.4
3. Results (Meteors)
====================
Nov 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
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BENOR - - - - - 18 19 3 - - - - 3 - -
EVAST - - - 16 - - - - - - - 70 - - -
KACJA - - - - - - - - - - - 2 - - -
MOLSI - - - - - - - 3 - - - - - 287 21
- - - 4 2 1 - 1 9 - - - 1 17 1
SLAST - - - - - - 54 - 4 - - - - - -
STRJO 3 - 4 23 16 13 10 27 - 9 29 3 - 27 -
- - - - 10 15 9 50 - - 30 - - 30 -
UEBST - - - - - - - 17 - - 9 - - - -
YRJIL 37 15 2 - 3 - - - 10 - - - 6 20 13
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Sum 40 15 6 43 31 47 92 101 23 9 68 75 10 381 35
Nov 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
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BENOR 3 - - 8 17 17 5 4 1 - - - - 9 1
EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KACJA 8 9 - 7 8 16 - - 15 15 16 28 - - -
MOLSI - - - - 37 4 - 137 16 4 - - - - -
- - - 11 2 1 - 20 16 6 - 1 - - -
SLAST 27 55 - 53 47 51 25 1 25 - - - - - -
STRJO - - - 6 6 - - 37 33 17 - - - - -
- - - - - - - 62 41 11 - - - - -
UEBST - - - - 22 - - 13 11 - - - - - -
YRJIL 33 40 15 58 12 28 - - 1 32 - - - - -
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Sum 71 104 15 143 151 117 30 274 159 85 16 29 - 9 1
Sirko Molau, 2004/12/18