The past few nights have been tough for meteor observing in both Tucson and San Diego. Rain fell in San Diego during the early morning of the 9th. Those showers, and thunderstorms, made their way to Tucson by the next evening. When not raining, there were enough clouds to make sky watching tough. This is especially true when the Moon is bright and illuminating the clouds.
Now as much as I’d like to get observations every night, we really need rain here. Tucson, like much of western North America, is in the grips of a decade-long drought. Hopefully we’ll lose some more nights to rain this winter.
From Bob’s notes on the 9th/10th: “Skies were clear on the evening of the 8th when I went to sleep but I woke during the morning hours to the sound of raindrops. That’s the wrong kind of showers! It rained off and on the remainder of the night and throughout the day. Skies began to clear near dusk on Sunday but it was not clear enough to run the camera until after 9pm. These rates are highly reduced due to clouds. The first two Leonids made their appearance on the morning of the 10th.”
And from the 11th: “Skies were partly cloudy all day and into the early evening. They finally cleared near 10pm and skies were mostly clear the remainder of the night. But now the moon is near its full phase so meteor rates will be reduced while the bright moon is high in the sky.”
Obs Date (UT) TotTime TOT SPO NTA STA LEO TUS 2008-11-11 07h 13m 10 9 1 0 0 SDG 2008-11-11 07h 13m 51 36 6 3 6 TUS 2008-11-10 03h 57m 8 7 0 1 0 SDG 2008-11-10 08h 08m 30 21 4 3 2 TUS 2008-11-09 11h 39m 21 16 1 4 SDG 2008-11-09 08h 41m 11 5 3 3
TUS – Camera in Tucson operated by Carl Hergenrother
SDG – Camera in San Diego operated by Bob Lunsford
TotTime – Total amount of time each camera looked for meteors
TOT – total number of meteors detected
SPO – Sporadics (meteors not affiliated with any particular meteor shower)
NTA – Northern Taurids
STA – Southern Taurids
LEO – Leonids
The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids, Meteors 