Early October Meteors

A quick perusal of the number of detection by the SALSA3 meteor camera shows nightly rates that range from 1 to 36. While there are natural variations in the number of meteors observed per night, the very low values are mainly due to clouds blocking the sky and resulting in fewer meteors being seen. Case in point, the night of Oct 7 was cloudy and rainy. A sole meteor was detected through the clouds. The meteors must have been fairly bright to have been seen at all.

Of the active showers, the Northern and Southern Taurids (NTA and STA) and Orionids (ORI) contribute about a quarter of all of the meteors during the first part of October. The Orionids will continue to grow more prominent as we approach their Oct 21 peak. This shower is usually a major shower and can produce up a ZHR of up to 60-80. But it also experiences a ~12 year cycle in peak activity due to Jupiter’s gravity moving the densest part of the Orionid dust trail towards and away from Earth’s orbit (ZHR=70 in 2007, ZHR=39 in 2008, ZHR=45 in 2009, ZHR=38 in 2010, ZHR=33 in 2011, ZHR=25 with short bursts to 44 in 2012, ZHR=21 in 2014). This year should continue the recent trend towards low rates though, as in 2012, short lived bursts of greater activity can occur.

Obs Date(UT)     Time    TOT SPO NTA STA ORI SLY DAU EGE OCA GIA Oth
SAL 2015-10-11  10h 59m   33  20  3   3   3   -   -   4   -   -   0
SAL 2015-10-10  09h 41m   20  14  1   3   1   -   0   1   -   0   0
SAL 2015-10-09  09h 02m   20  14  2   2   0   -   0   0   -   2   0
SAL 2015-10-08  11h 12m   29  19  1   2   5   -   1   0   -   1   0
SAL 2015-10-07  00h 09m   1   1   0   0   0   -   0   0   0   0   0
SAL 2015-10-06  07h 58m   17  11  3   1   0   -   1   1   0   0   0
SAL 2015-10-05  06h 28m   13  10  2   0   0   0   0   0   1   -   0
SAL 2015-10-04  06h 39m   16  10  1   4   1   0   0   0   -   -   0
SAL 2015-10-03  10h 34m   34  21  2   4   4   0   1   1   -   -   1
SAL 2015-10-02  10h 11m   36  23  1   6   1   1   0   2   -   -   1
SAL 2015-10-01  10h 59m   35  21  0   2   4   2   3   2   -   -   1


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)
NTA - Northern Taurids
STA - Southern Taurids
ORI - Orionids
SLY - September Lyncids
DAU - Delta Aurigids
EGE - Epsilon Geminids
OCA - October Camelopardalids
GIA - Draconids (also called the Giacobinids)
Oth - other minor showers