Sept 24/25/26/27/28 Meteors

Clear moon-less skies over Tucson have produced a steady “shower” of meteors. My 2 cameras are catching about 23 to 41 meteors per night.

This week saw the start of activity from the 2 branches of the Taurid meteor shower (the Northern and Southern Taurids). The start date of the Taurids is based on previous analysis of video data. A recent paper by Peter Brown based on Canadian radar data finds that the Taurids are active as early as late July. In fact, the minor Northern and Southern Iota Aquariids are really just the beginning of the N and S Taurids. So next year, our Taurid watch may be starting much, much earlier than usual.

Obs Date (UT)   TotTime  TOT SPO DAU NTA STA
TUS 2009-09-28  10h 25m   23  17  2   3   1
TUS 2009-09-27  10h 24m   37  29  4   3   1
SDG 2009-09-27  09h 41m   42  38  -   -   4
TUS 2009-09-26  10h 13m   41  34  6   0   1
SDG 2009-09-26  07h 00m   32  25  -   -   7
TUS 2009-09-25  10h 00m   35  33  0   1   1
SDG 2009-09-25  09h 50m   60  49  -   -   11

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)
DAU – Delta Aurigids
NTA – Northern Taurids (includes Antihelions)
STA – Southern Taurids (includes Antihelions)