Nov 29/30/Dec 1 Meteors

Carl Hergenrother

Even though the clouds are long gone, fog and dew have kept the camera in Tucson from detecting most meteors. Right now I am using an unheated security camera housing for my camera, if dew continues to be a problem it may be time to order a heated enclosure.

We are still between the major Leonid and Geminid showers. Activity from the Geminids should slowly pick up over the next week before kicking into high gear during the 2nd week of December.

Bob Lunsford reports quite a showing from the Puppids/Velids on the night of Nov 30/Dec 1. Here’s more from his notes: “Scattered thin cirrus was present most of the night but it did not interfere with the video camera. An impressive 100 meteors were recorded this night including 7 meteors from the Puppid-Velid shower, a shower better seen from the southern hemisphere. As I drove to work just after shutting down the camera, I ran into a fog bank just west of the house. I was lucky the fog did not extend any further inland. My luck ran out the next two nights as fog has completely obscured the sky during the nighttime hours.”

Obs  Date (UT)   TotTime TOT SPO ANT MON PHO PUP
TUS  2008-12-01  12h 04m  14  12  1   1   0   0
SDG  2008-12-01  11h 59m 100  79  6   8   0   7
TUS  2008-11-30  09h 15m  5   4   1   0   0
SDG  2008-11-30  11h 10m  32  29  3   0   0

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)
ANT – Antihelions
MON – December Monocerotids
PHO – December Phoenicids
PUP – Puppids/Velids complex

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.

13 Comments

  1. i saw either a meteor or shooting star in the sky at about 9.00pm on the first of december it was a wonderful thing to see it was like a blue/white trail with like an orange glow on the outside i was just wondering if anyone else saw this.thanks

  2. Hi Mrs. Garbett,

    Thanks for posting your sighting.

    Where are you located? Meteors can only be seen over a few hundred miles so we need to know what town, or even just what state, it was seen in.

    Thanks again,
    – Carl

  3. I live is Columbia, South Carolina. At 12:01 A.M.,(the first minute of the month of December) I walked outside and saw the most beautiful meteor I have ever witnessed. I thought the lights of an approaching car were headed my way. I realized it was not a car when I looked up to see the shooting star heading east. It lit up my neighorhood as it wizzed on by.
    I stood there in amazment.

  4. I saw the most amazing thing last night Dec 29, 2008 around 9:15ish pm. I’m under the impression it was a shooting star but it seemed closer then most airplanes. It was the brightest largest thing I’ve ever seen in the sky, it was moving very fast with a large blue tail, the ball was bright orange and it almost looked like it was sparking. It was moving in a downward right direction and after it passed the tree line I couldn’t see it anymore. By far the most amazing experience ever, did anyone else catch this?

  5. Im not sure that I saw the same thing as you did..but on Dec 30 or the 29 th about 9 pm est I was closing the blinds on the glass doors leading to our veranda , for a second I saw an incredibly fast moving object low in the northern sky…moving south to north ..we are right on the beach just north of atlantic city nj….this is the second time in about a month I saw the same type of object moving in appx the same direction …..we being directly on the ocean front and 3 stories up with no tall buildings around….i can only assume that it was to low in the night sky for most people to spot…but what surprised me most is that there was no mention of it on the news at all….

    1. Hi Peter,

      You saw a bright fireball that was widely seen from Maryland to Maine. The best source of info for this fireball can be found at Spaceweather.com. More specifically at
      http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=31&month=12&year=2008
      and
      http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/fireballreports_29dec08.htm?PHPSESSID=dacgtucn552898b12jr1rou4u5&PHPSESSID=k157kim8cim0510k6tq72spkl0

      This was probably also the same fireball reported by Adele.

      Thanks for reporting your sighting,
      – Carl

  7. I feel kind of stupid asking this question …well here goes ..has anyone noticed a quick change in the length of daylight hours over the past week or so..I mean on Christmas day it got dark at 4.30 or so..today it was still light at 5pm…I was under the impression that the amount of daylight hours dont normally start to increase until late jan or early feb …am I wrong on this ..thanks Peter ..ps..Iam on the east coast of the U.S.

    1. Hi Peter,

      Nothing stupid about this question. I’m not sure where you live on the east coast. For New York, the times of sunset has moved from 4:34pm on Christmas to 4:46pm today. That’s a change of ~12 minutes (more if you live north of NYC, less to the south).

      Even though the shortest length of sunlight hours is on Dec 21, the earliest sunset happens in early December. Sunsets have been getting later since then. The latest sunrise happens during the 1st week of January. So even though the length of the day has only increased by 10 minutes (again for NYC) since Christmas the time of daylight has been shifting later (later sunrises and sunsets).

      You can determine sunrise and sunset times for any location in the world here:

      http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php

      If you want to delve deeper into why the times of sunrise and sunset behave the way they due (it’s due to a combination of the Earth’s tilt on its axis and the fact that the Earth’s axis is not a perfect circle), check out the following sites:

      http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/moonkmft/Articles/EquationOfTime.html
      http://www.analemma.com/

      Thanks for posting your question,
      – Carl

  8. O.K. Carl thanks again …had been a bit I guess concerned is the right word and wondered if this was due to something else possibly…specifically I have noticed or at least it seems that weather patterns around the planet have become more erratic than usual since the large earthquake that caused the sunami Dec 26 of acouple of years ago..at thee time I remember a geologist saying that “the earth wobbled on its axis for 48 hours ” due to the magnitude of the quake…I guess I let my mind run away a bit ..maybe I watched to many British sci fi movies in the 50 s and 60s…thanks again Peter

  9. TO Anyone,

    I am searching for information about Meteor sited on Dec 27th 2008.

    It was near Merced, CA

    Anyone have any information?

    Thanks

  10. Spotted shooting star while driving north on garden state parkway in nj at appx12:20 am this morning ..not exceptionally large or bright …but moved very fast from so east to north west and vanished.
    Since most people were asleep on this particularly cold nignt/morning i dont imagine many saw it .
    regards peter

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