July 29/30 Meteors

Carl Hergenrother

Rates were down last night. There are 2 possible reasons for this. One, we have passed the peak of the Southern Delta Aquariids and activity should slow for the rest of the week. Two, sky conditions in Tucson weren’t as good as the previous night as an influx of moisture made for some murky skies. It is likely that it was a combination of the 2.

Bob was able to take his meteor camera to a dark site allowing him to detect a lot more meteors than usual. From his notes: “I took the camera to dark skies and to get away from the low clouds that have been present along the coast for the past few nights. Alpine lies in the foothills of the Laguna Mountains some 25 miles east of San Diego. The low clouds acted like a blanket over the lights of San Diego and it was actually very dark. Activity was impressive both visually and through the camera. There were a few high clouds present at times, but not enough to spoil the display.”

Obs  Date (UT)   TotTime TOT SPO ANT CAP SDA PAU PER
TUS  2009-07-30  08h 26m  39  18  1   2   12  0   6
SDG  2009-07-30  04h 00m 130  74  5   2   30  1   18

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
CAP – Alpha Capricornids
SDA – Southern Delta Aquariids
PAU – Piscids Australids
PER – Perseids

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.

5 Comments

  1. After so long looking at this site and enjoying the observations, I saw my first proper fireball last night!!!

    It was bluish yellow and brightened once and then again very quickly. There was no accompanying sound (might be hard to hear in the city). It moved from south to north and was over in about a second. It occurred at approx 9pm.

    This was over Auckland and so was a southern hemisphere event. Totally serendipitous as well. I was only outside for five minutes and it was a perfectly clear (and chilly) evening. My flatmate just missed it.

    1. PS the fireball was many many times brighter than Jupiter which seems to be the brightest object in the sky at the moment down here. That was very approximately the direction it came from too.

  2. Hi I live in England Sheffield and I have just seen a massive fireball tonight about 10 mins ago it was scary but awsome at the same time do you think this was a Meteor?

  3. this happened at about 10.30pm it was a bright orange glare and looked about the same size as a Brittish 10 pence coin from where we were stood it was deffo on fire I’ve never seen anything like it before. It looked like the sun was flying over our house. it made a jet like sound too. (100% deffinatley not a jet though)

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