August 24/25 to 30/31 Meteors

This post covers the last week of August. During this time the weather in San Diego allowed almost nightly coverage though some nights were affected by forest fire smoke. In Tucson, the monsoon was in remission though clouds were still an occasional problem.

By the end of August, many of the productive showers of the past few weeks have ended (Perseids, Southern Delta Aquarids, Kappa Cygnids). Still, the number of Sporadic meteors remains high even if there are no major showers active.

The only active shower is the Aurigids (also called the Alpha Aurigids). This shower has been known to experience short, yet spectacular outbursts. The last such outburst was in 2007 which I was lucky enough to have observed. In fact, it was observing that outburst, and not wanting to miss any others, that gave me the impetus to set up an automated meteor camera system.

Obs Date (UT)  TotTime TOT SPO ANT AUR KCG
TUS 2009-08-31 08h 04m  13  11  1   1
SDG 2009-08-31 09h 01m  32  27  4   1
TUS 2009-08-30 08h 31m  25  22  1   2
SDG 2009-08-30 06h 22m  41  39  2   0
TUS 2009-08-29 08h 48m  30  26  2   1
SDG 2009-08-29 08h 56m  27  26  1   0
TUS 2009-08-28 02h 23m  9   7   1   1
SDG 2009-08-28 09h 12m  48  41  7   0
SDG 2009-08-27 08h 57m  47  43  3   1
SDG 2009-08-26 08h 58m  49  42  7   0
SDG 2009-08-25 09h 01m  38  34  2   1   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
AUR – Aurigids
KCG – Kappa Cygnids