Meteors over the past few weeks (June 24/25 to July 5/6)

Meteor rates continue to remain on the low side even though we have entered the prime meteor watching month of July. The totals listed below look even lower due to the early monsoon that has hit AZ. After a week or two of clouds and the occasional t-storm, the sky has cleared though this respite will be over by the end of the week.

From Bob’s notes: “Observations on June 27th were obtained from the dark skies of the Laguna Mountains, east of San Diego. On the 28th, I recorded no activity during the last two hours before dawn. Very unusual! On July 2nd, evening observations were cut short by clouds. Although we have passed into July, meteor rates continue to be very low. We will not see a large increase until mid-month. The one Alpha Capricornid captured on the morning of the 5th was nearly of fireball brightness.”

Note that the June Bootids did not show up this year. This was expected since their were no predictions for enhanced activity this year. Between Tucson and San Diego, only a single JBO was seen. The Alpha Capricornids are already showing up though at this early stage it is possible that they are just misidentified antihelions.

Obs  Date (UT)   TotTime TOT SPO ANT JBO CAP
TUS  2009-07-06  02h 55m  11  9   2       0
TUS  2009-07-05  05h 22m  15  13  0       2
SDG  2009-07-05  06h 58m  8   7   0       1
SDG  2009-07-04  03h 00m  5   4   1       0
TUS  2009-07-03  02h 23m  2   2   0       0
SDG  2009-07-03  02h 00m  3   3   0       0
SDG  2009-07-02  02h 00m  3   2   1   0
TUS  2009-06-30  01h 30m  5   5   0   0
SDG  2009-06-30  05h 58m  10  10  0   0
TUS  2009-06-29  02h 21m  2   1   1   0
TUS  2009-06-28  01h 00m  2   1   1   0
TUS  2009-06-27  01h 51m  9   9   0   0  
SDG  2009-06-27  04h 30m  65  58  6   1
TUS  2009-06-26  01h 55m  2   1   1   0
TUS  2009-06-25  01h 00m  2   2   0   0
TUS  2009-06-24  06h 51m  12  12  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
JBO – June Bootids
CAP – Alpha Capricornids