Nov 23/24 Meteors

Carl Hergenrother

Last night turned out to be a rather good night for observing from both Tucson and San Diego. But not a great night since some cirrus was around. With a strong Pacific storm forecast to swing through CA and AZ, the rest of the week may not be conducive for meteor observing from San Diego and Tucson.

From Bob Lunsford’s notes: “The weather was actually clear most of the night, much to my surprise. There was occasional cirrus and the humidity was very high, limiting the transparency of the sky. This is very good for planetary observers but not for meteor observations.

This may be the last night of observing for awhile as storms are forecast to arrive tomorrow and over the weekend.”

The Leonids are now officially over and have been dropped from the table below. The 17 meteors seen by the Tucson camera is the lowest nightly tally (for a night with little or no clouds) since Oct 12th.

Obs  Date (UT)   TotTime TOT SPO NTA STA AMO
TUS  2008-11-24  11h 27m  17  16  1   0   0
SDG  2008-11-24  11h 50m  62  50  6   2   4

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
AMO – Alpha Monocerotids

Published by Carl Hergenrother

I am a professional astronomer specializing in the study of comets, asteroids and meteors. This blog will focus on my professional and amateur work in this field.

4 Comments

  1. This morning 11/24/08 around 4:30am I saw what I think was a meteor. There looked like there was fire coming from it and it was low. Before it got beyond the houses it disappeared. Just though I would let you know this. Looked much different than a shooting star.

  2. I saw exactly the same thing about 1:30 am in Southeast Ohio. It was larger than a shooting star and fell straight down with fire coming from it and disappeared behind the hills. This is why I was looking on the internet to see if anyone else saw it.

  3. Hi Teresa and Cathy,

    From your descriptions, it appear that both of you saw bright meteors, also called fireballs.

    While most meteors appear as fast moving streaks that last less than a second, the brighter ones can appear to be almost any color, last for a few seconds, leave “smoky” trails behind them and break into many pieces.

    This time of the year, there are many fireballs that can appear at any hour of the night.

    Thanks for posting your reports,
    – Carl

  4. This morning (nov 29,2008) I was awake around 4:45am and talking to my friend on the phone, she was was like wow, what was that? I saw it too, it was a bright purple light from my perspective coming through my bedroom window. She said it looked like a bright green light from hers. We live on complete opposites of the town (Liverpool Nova Scotia) too. Any idea what that might have been? I was so appalled that I didn’t get up and take a look so I don’t know what it looked like in the sky.

    -Lisa

Comments are closed.