January 31/1 to 7/8 Meteors

The first week of the year marks the end of an annual stretch of high meteor activity that started in July. In particular the week includes the Quadrantids, the last major shower (at least for northern observers) until April (for the barely major Lyrids). The next really good shower won’t be till August (Perseids).

As in most years the Quadrantids were a difficult shower to observe due to its short peak time (only ~12 hours versus 1 or more days for other major showers). This year the peak occurred hours before the radiant was high enough in AZ to see any meteors.

According to visual reports to the IMO, this year’s Quadrantids had a peak ZHR of ~90. By the time the radiant was high enough over AZ to detect any activity the ZHR had fallen to ~30.

Obs  Date(UT)      Time    TOT SPO ANT DLM AHY JLE QUA
SAL3 2011-01-08   12h 06m   24  17  4   1   1   -   1
ALLS 2011-01-08   12h 36m   17  12  1   0   1   -   3
SAL3 2011-01-07   12h 06m   14  12  2   0   0   -   0
ALLS 2011-01-07   12h 36m   12  9   0   2   1   -   0
SAL3 2011-01-06   00h 49m   2   1   0   1   0   0   0
ALLS 2011-01-06   12h 37m   2   1   0   1   0   0   0
SAL3 2011-01-05   12h 08m   11  9   0   0   1   0   1
ALLS 2011-01-05   12h 38m   8   6   1   0   0   0   1
SAL3 2011-01-04   10h 02m   38  17  0   3   1   1   16
ALLS 2011-01-04   12h 12m   29  12  0   2   0   0   15
SAL3 2011-01-03   06h 24m   18  10  1   1   0   0   6
ALLS 2011-01-03   12h 39m   10  4   0   1   0   1   4
SAL3 2011-01-02   12h 09m   20  14  3   0   0   1   2
ALLS 2011-01-02   12h 39m   9   7   0   0   0   0   2
SAL3 2011-01-01   10h 24m   17  13  1   0   1   1   1
ALLS 2011-01-01   12h 40m   3   2   0   0   1   0   0

SAL3 - SALSA3 camera in Tucson (Carl Hergenrother)
ALLS - Near all-sky camera in Tucson (Carl Hergenrother)
VIST - Visual observations from Tucson (Carl Hergenrother)
VISH - Visual observations from Hermosillo (Salvador Aguirre)
HERM - PARENI camera in Hermosillo (Salvador Aguirre)
SDG - Camera in San Diego operated by Bob Lunsford
Time - 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   
HYD - Sigma Hydrids
DLM - December Leonis Minorids
AHY - Alpha Hydrids
JLE - January Leonis Minorids
QUA - Quadrantids