Quadrantids Put On a Show
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
One of several Quadrantid meteors I caught on camera. Meteor was much more impressive to the eyes.
Night started with clouds moving over my place about sunset, I went to bed early. Woke up at 2:45am CDT to clear skies and after getting powered up with coffee I was observing by 3:30. Here are my actual notes from the night:
03:20-03:30 3 QUA 1 SPO 03:50-04:05 6 QUA 2 SPO 04:17-04:30 5 QUA 03:20-03:30 3 QUA 1 SPO 04:40-04:50 9 QUA 2 SPO 5.8 lm, 29F 05:03-05:14 1 QUA 05:23-05:34 3 QUA 2 SPO 05:43-05:56 10 QUA 2 SPO 06:05-06:15 5 QUA 2 SPO 06:20-06:27 3 QUA 2 SPO
45 total meteors in 1 hour 40 minutes effective observing time. (there will be an app for this). Very good show this morning. It helps I was looking either up at the sky to the NE or NW, if one had been watching to the south they’d have missed a bunch of meteors.
Besides having nice clear skies it was only 29°F outside, light wind. There wasn’t even any dew or frost. In January! Amazing.
Well I must have been living under a rock yesterday. This morning I hear local meteorologist Don Harmon passed away on Tuesday. It was a tearful morning show on WDAF. I feel very sad about this as Don was a funny and bright guy. He was the single reason I watched the Fox 4 morning show and showed a big interest in space and the stars.
