From Bob’s notes: “The wild swings in meteor activity continues. After a very slow night on the 2nd, meteor rates increased 3x up to 45 on the 3rd. I did not have a chance to check the plots to see if any unlisted radiant was adding to the activity. Clouds are moving into the area and we could see some unsettled weather arrive soon.”
In Tucson, the results were similar. 23 meteors in one night is the highest rate since the peak of the Quadrantids in early January. Though the rates have been very high for this time of the year, the amount of meteor activity is still only a fraction of what we see during the peak of a major meteor shower.
According to the sky plots, last night’s meteor all came from random parts of the sky. This suggests that no one shower is responsible for the elevated activity.
Obs Date (UT) TotTime TOT SPO ANT ACE TUS 2009-02-03 11h 28m 23 22 0 0 SDG 2009-02-03 10h 45m 45 40 4 1
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
ACE – Alpha Centaurids
The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids, Meteors 