March continues the “doldrum” season of meteor observing. With no major showers active and sporadic activity at a minimum, this time of the year sees the lowest meteor rates. April is also a bit dull though one major shower, the Lyrids, will spice things up for a few nights.
The second half of March did minor but consistent activity from two showers, the Eta Virginids (EVI) (discussed in a previous post) and the Zeta Serpentids (ZSE). The ZSE were produced by an unknown retrograde long-period comet with a perihelion near 0.99 AU from the Sun and inclination of 150º.
Obs Date(UT) Time TOT SPO ANT GNO EVI XHE NVI ZSE SAL 2014-03-31 10h 22m 15 11 2 - 0 - - 2 SAL 2014-03-30 10h 00m 9 8 1 - 0 - - 0 SAL 2014-03-29 10h 11m 17 16 0 - 1 - - 0 SAL 2014-03-28 09h 51m 15 12 1 - 0 - - 2 SAL 2014-03-27 09h 28m 6 5 1 - 0 - - 0 SAL 2014-03-26 10h 31m 12 7 2 - 1 - - 2 SAL 2014-03-25 09h 19m 19 16 1 - 0 - - 2 SAL 2014-03-24 09h 51m 5 4 0 - 0 - - 1 SAL 2014-03-23 10h 30m 21 14 4 - 1 - - 2 SAL 2014-03-22 10h 40m 12 10 0 0 0 - 1 1 SAL 2014-03-21 08h 58m 7 5 1 0 0 - 1 0 SAL 2014-03-20 10h 30m 15 10 2 0 2 - 1 0 SAL 2014-03-19 10h 46m 6 4 2 0 0 - 0 0 SAL 2014-03-18 10h 48m 8 4 3 0 1 - 0 - SAL 2014-03-17 10h 50m 6 5 0 0 1 0 0 - SAL 2014-03-16 10h 52m 21 14 5 0 2 0 0 - SAL - SALSA3 camera in Tucson (Carl Hergenrother) VIS - Visual observations from Tucson (Carl Hergenrother) 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 GNO - Gamma Normids EVI - Eta Virginids XHE - x Herculids NVI - Northern March Virginids ZSE - Zeta Serpentids
The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids, Meteors 