Sept 28/29/30 Meteors

The weather is changing here in the American southwest. Now that the monsoon is over the weather patterns are changing to more of a fall/winter pattern. This still means it is usually clear but every week or so a cut-off low or cold front moves through the area. Today is a cold front day. As a result, Bob has been dealing with clouds and few sprinkles while Tucson gets hit with wind as well as some clouds.

Luckily the clouds held off till the very end of the night in Tucson. Rates were down from the average over the past week, though this is probably due to the clouds and the brightening Moon.

Starting on the night of Sept 28/29, we are looking for activity from the September Lyncids. This is a recently identified shower first found in amateur video data. It is also a bit of an oddball since it active in early September and then again between Sept 29 and Oct 2. There is a possibility that there are in fact 2 separate showers. Further observations will be required to solve this mystery.

From Bob’s notes: “After a totally overcast night on the 28th, the fog held off until 11:30pm tonight, which allowed me 2.5 hours observing time but only 2 meteors.”

Obs Date (UT)   TotTime  TOT SPO DAU NTA STA SLY
TUS 2009-09-30  09h 20m   21  17  0   2   2   0
TUS 2009-09-29  10h 29m   31  28  0   1   1   1
SDG 2009-09-29  02h 34m   2   2   -   -   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)
DAU – Delta Aurigids
NTA – Northern Taurids (includes Antihelions)
STA – Southern Taurids (includes Antihelions)
SLY – September Lyncids