[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

I set up my 400D doing 30s exposures every 34 seconds, F3.5, ISO 800, fully wide ( 18mm*1.6 so 29mm equiv ) when I went to bed - it took 247 exposures looking east, from 0027 to 0257 before the battery packed up in the cold of the conservatory. I figure I was capturing 88% of that period of time on film...a total of 132 minutes of exposed time. They're great images...you can watch Leo slowly rising - M44 is very visible - getting stars down to 7, 7.5, maybe 8. Not the ideal pointing, but the best I could do from the conservatory given that I wanted to keep everything inside....a few banks of light cloud popped through every now and again, but overall, I'm fairly sure any Leonid that I would have noticed by eye I would have seen on 'film'.. I know I didn't 'get' the peak....but even 5 per hour would have seen me get a couple at least...

I have ONE streak on film....and it's not a Leonid.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/IMG_0107.jpg ( scaled to 50% )

I think the Lion had a night off, and I know Stu didn't fair much better in Kendal.

Doug

[Aberdeenastro]

Thanks Ustrax and Tesheiner for the congrats. Don't talk to me about diapers. Let's just say the wall near the changing table will need re-decorating....

Our group Geminids total is now in and comes to a staggering 652 separate meteors. We counted out loud as a group, so none were counted twice. Here is the breakdown:

9:20-10:20 pm: 60 Geminids (3 observers)
10:20-11:20 pm: 135 Geminids (4 observers)
11:20-12:20 am: 155 Geminids (3 observers)
12:20-1:20 am: 150 Geminids (2 observers)
1:20-2:20 am: 100 Geminids (2 observers)
2:20-2:50 am: 52 Geminids (2 observers and increasing cloud)

This ties in really well with the peak that is showing up in early reports on the IMO website (http://www.imo.net/), where a peak ZHR of 110 has been recorded at 1 am. ZHR is defined as being for a single observer (you're not really supposed to combine the counts of more than one person), but the peak rate of 110 agrees quite well with our observations. The peak seems to have been a few hours early.

Sorry AndyG - have you considered a move to the east coast where we get marginally better skies?

Aberdeenastro