Results of the IMO Video Meteor Network - July 2005
===================================================
The hourly meteor rate increased in July as expected. Thanks to more than five
meteors per hour on average and increasing night lenghts, more than 2500
meteors could be recorded. This is still less than in January 2005, though. In
the second decade of July the weather was quite pleasant in central Europe, but
before and after that the month was hardly summer-like. It was cold, rainy
and clouded. This tendency continued at many sites well into August, so that
only few will keep good memories of the summer of 2005.
After a long break, I managed to do some coding in June and July again.
Beside some optimizations in the MetRec meteor detection code, a new tool
was on my todo list. It worried me for a long time that meteor outbursts might
gone unnoticed by video observers because of lack of the right tool. If there
was an unexpected outburst like that of the June Bootids, for example, it
would be quite improbable that one of the video observers would notice those
"sporadic meteors coming all from the same direction", and that he would use
the RADIANT software to check the case. In the best case, a visual observer
might alarm the community and video observations could be used to verify the
observation. If there is no visual observer of the outburst, it would stay
most probably unnoticed regardless of the video observations.
That's the point where the StreamChecker jumps in. It analyses the meteors
of a night (input is a MetRec logfile) and computes the probability of all
possible radiant positions and meteoroid stream velocities. Thus, StreamChecker
works like a simplified version of RADIANT whereby the geocentric velocity
does not have to be specified beforehand. As a result, a list of all possible
"radiants" and their relative "activity" is given, whereby known meteor
showers are already assigned to the computed ones. If there is indeed an
unexpected outburst, a clear radiant should become visible in the output of
StreamChecker, and the result could be verified by other visual or video
observations.
Currently, StreamChecker is still in a test phase, but in a few weeks time
it will be made available to all video observers.
1. Observers
============
Code Name Place Camera FOV LM Nights Time Meteors
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BENOR Benitez-S. Las Palmas TIMES5 (1.4/50) 20 dg 4 mag 7 53.6h 229
TIMES5 (0.8/6) 50 dg 3 mag 6 41.2 h 67
EVAST Evans Moreton RF1 (1.2/12) 20 dg 4 mag 4 16.5 h 65
KACJA Kac Kostanjevec METKA (0.8/8) 42 dg 2 mag 13 64.6 h 114
KOSDE Koschny Noordwijkerh. ICC3 (0.85/25) 25 dg 6 mag 4 12.4 h 32
MOLSI Molau Seysdorf AVIS2 (1.4/50) 60 dg 6 mag 11 45.6 h 1033
MINCAM1 (0.8/6) 50 dg 3 mag 25 98.5 h 412
SLAST Slavec Ljubljana KAYAK1 (1.8/28) 50 dg 4 mag 12 50.1 h 148
STRJO Strunk Leopoldshoehe MINCAM2 (0.8/6) 55 dg 3 mag 16 52.4 h 127
MINCAM3 (0.8/8) 42 dg 4 mag 9 30.8 h 79
VK1 (0.75/50) 20 dg 8 mag 8 30.2 h 210
UEBST Ueberschaer Aachen MIMO (0.95/25) 13 dg 4 mag 9 26.7 h 68
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Sum 29 522.6 h 2584
2. Observing Times (h)
======================
July 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
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BENOR - - - - - - - - 6.5 7.4 7.9 7.9 7.6 8.2 8.1
- - - - - - - - - 7.5 8.2 4.3 4.8 8.2 8.2
EVAST - - - - - - - 4.1 - - - - - - 4.0
KACJA - 5.4 6.2 2.3 - 6.1 - - - - - - - - 3.0
KOSDE - - - - - - - - - - - 1.0 3.4 4.0 4.0
MOLSI - - 4.5 - 4.1 - - - 0.3 - - 3.1 4.0 4.4 -
1.1 4.0 6.0 - 6.0 3.6 - 5.6 2.2 0.7 0.7 5.8 6.3 6.4 2.1
SLAST 1.6 - - - - - - - - - - - 1.6 4.6 -
STRJO 3.7 - 0.9 0.5 3.9 - - - - 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.3 4.3 4.4
- - - - 3.9 - - - 0.6 - 3.9 4.2 4.1 4.4 -
3.3 - - - 3.3 - - - - - - 3.8 4.0 4.4 3.6
UEBST - - - - 0.7 - - - - - - 4.7 2.4 4.9 3.7
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Sum 9.7 9.4 17.6 2.8 21.9 9.7 - 9.7 9.6 19.7 24.8 38.9 42.5 53.8 41.1
July 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
EVAST 3.9 - 4.5 - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KACJA - 4.6 - 6.1 1.9 - - - - 3.3 - 6.2 7.0 7.4 5.1 -
KOSDE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOLSI - 5.3 - - - - - - - - 5.2 5.5 5.9 - - 3.3
4.1 6.5 - 2.7 - 3.0 - 1.0 0.3 0.8 5.9 7.0 6.5 4.0 - 6.2
SLAST 3.4 5.1 - 5.6 2.5 - - - 5.6 - 5.3 5.3 5.4 - - 4.1
STRJO 4.5 4.5 4.6 3.5 0.5 - - - - - 0.5 - - - - -
3.1 3.9 - - - - - - - - - - - - 2.7 -
3.2 4.6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
UEBST - - - - 5.1 - - 1.8 1.3 - - - - - 2.1 -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum 22.2 34.5 9.1 17.9 10.0 3.0 - 2.8 7.2 4.1 16.9 24.0 24.8 11.4 9.9 13.6
3. Results (Meteors)
====================
July 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR - - - - - - - - 25 33 29 42 31 44 25
- - - - - - - - - 17 11 7 5 17 10
EVAST - - - - - - - 18 - - - - - - 14
KACJA - 6 9 4 - 3 - - - - - - - - 5
KOSDE - - - - - - - - - - - 2 2 6 22
MOLSI - - 111 - 74 - - - 4 - - 66 83 113 -
3 10 22 - 14 7 - 21 6 1 1 20 27 22 9
SLAST 6 - - - - - - - - - - - 2 9 -
STRJO 8 - 1 1 9 - - - - 10 13 11 5 17 6
- - - - 9 - - - 1 - 11 5 6 16 -
13 - - - 24 - - - - - - 27 15 39 24
UEBST - - - - 2 - - - - - - 9 1 14 7
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum 30 16 143 5 132 10 - 39 36 61 65 189 177 297 122
July 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
EVAST 17 - 16 - - - - - - - - - - - - -
KACJA - 8 - 7 1 - - - - 8 - 20 19 13 11 -
KOSDE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MOLSI - 98 - - - - - - - - 139 114 141 - - 90
17 25 - 14 - 14 - 4 1 2 37 34 33 19 - 49
SLAST 4 6 - 13 2 - - - 3 - 6 23 14 - - 60
STRJO 17 17 8 2 1 - - - - - 1 - - - - -
5 16 - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 -
26 42 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
UEBST - - - - 16 - - 4 3 - - - - - 12 -
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Sum 86 212 24 36 20 14 - 8 7 10 183 191 207 32 33 199
Sirko Molau, 2005/08/19