First Week of March Meteors

The first week of March continues February’s trend of low meteor rates and no major shower activity. Unfortunately this will be the case thorough most of April.

Bob’s notes …

Feb 28/Mar 1: “Another perfectly clear night with good activity. Two more Gamma Normids were recorded tonight. Leo and Ophiuchus continue to see a lot of meteor activity.”

Mar 1/2: “Another perfectly clear night with slightly less activity than last night. Occasional thin cirrus clouds could have reduced the counts tonight. Two more Gamma Normids were recorded tonight. The Antihelion radiant was more active than usual with 5 members. There were three areas in Ophiuchus that presented possible radiants. None had more than four meteors and they were not particularly sharp so these are most likely sporadic alignments.”

Mar 4/5: “The last two nights were lost to clouds. Tonight was perfectly clear night but rates were down significantly from the first two sessions this month. Two more Gamma Normids were recorded tonight. The first of these was very bright with an estimated magnitude near -3. It shot northward and ended near the handle of the Big Dipper. Plots revealed nothing of note tonight.”

Mar 5/6: “It was mostly clear tonight but with occasional cirrus and mid-level clouds. Overall activity was somewhat quiet but the Gamma Normids and Antihelion were active compared to the sporadic counts. There was a tight radiant in eastern Ophiuchus that produced four of the fifteen spordic meteors recorded tonight. It was not close to any bright star but located directly between Beta and Eta Ophiuchi.”

Obs  Date(UT)      Time    TOT SPO ANT DLE GNO
SAL3 2011-03-06   10h 44m   10  6   3   1   0
ALLS 2011-03-06   11h 05m   4   4   0   0   0
SDG  2011-03-06   10h 31m   20  15  2   -   3

SAL3 2011-03-05   03h 07m   10  8   2   0   0
ALLS 2011-03-05   11h 05m   4   4   0   0   0
SDG  2011-03-05   10h 10m   23  19  2   -   2
HERM 2011-03-05   10h 41m   8   7   0   1   0

SAL3 2011-03-04   10h 23m   10  10  0   0   0
ALLS 2011-03-04   10h 37m   8   8   0   0   0

SAL3 2011-03-03   02h 08m   5   5   0   0   0
ALLS 2011-03-03   11h 18m   3   3   0   0   0
HERM 2011-03-03   10h 41m   6   4   2   0   0

SAL3 2011-03-02   10h 52m   19  17  1   0   1
ALLS 2011-03-02   11h 20m   10  9   1   0   0
SDG  2011-03-02   10h 36m   34  27  5   -   2

SAL3 2011-03-01   10h 54m   10  9   1   0   0
ALLS 2011-03-01   11h 22m   5   3   2   0   0
SDG  2011-03-01   10h 06m   41  37  2   -   2

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
DLE - Delta Leonids
GNO - Gamma Normids