David Levy asks for meteor observations

[john_drummond]

Hi all,

David Levy contacted me a few days ago asking if I (and perhaps others) could observe a possible meteor shower in Pavo that may be linked to a comet he discovered in 1991. The radiant possibly peaks on Thursday 31 August - Friday 1 September (2006). David states that there may be no activity. However if we don't observe we won't know...

I've prepared a webpage with info at the link below.

http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz/levys_meteor_shower-gamma_pavonids-31aug.htm
or
http://tinyurl.com/zgk8l

If anyone can PLEASE observe this radiant, go for it!!! Basically, you just sit there and look about 20 degrees from the radiant point with the naked eye. If you see a meteor, trace it's path back (preferably on a star chart) and see if it came from the radiant point, if so, log it as a 'shower' meteor. The radiant is visible all night, with the 1/4 Moon setting about 1am.

If you do observe (and even see NO meteors), then please send me a completed observing form (or just an email to say if you saw none).

Who knows, perhaps there's a fairly new radiant there just waiting to be seen...

Cheers:help:

John Drummond
Director - Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand Comet and Meteor Section
Gisborne, New Zealand
E 178* 03', S 38* 40'
email: john_drummond@xtra.co.nz
website: http://www.possumobservatory.co.nz

[[1ponders]]

G'day John, how are you. Keepin' busy?

It mighty nice of him to time the shower max for the end of the week and into the weekend. I'll have to see if I can get some visual time in ;) And only a few hours either side of midnight as well. Damn respectabe :)

[john_drummond]

Hi Paul,

good to 'see' you again. Yes, David was most gracious to discover (and probably organise) the comet so that its path resulted in an end of week radiant for us. I love forward thinkers!

It would be great if you could give it a whirl, I know David's keen to hear about a positive (or negative) result...

Cheers

John

[avandonk]

I have a high quality 6.7mm F1.3 c-mount lens on the way for a Gstar-EX low light B&W CCD camera. This will give a field of view of 49x41 degrees. This camera can integrate up to 128 frames (2.6sec time interval). I have software to capture the frames at the set integration time interval. These frames are time stamped and it is just a matter of going through them to see which ones if any have a meteorite trail in them.
Weather permitting I would be willing to run this system on the all the consecutive nights and send the relevant data on.
This camera is very sensitive and can show better than mag 8 in real time depending on integration setting (2 to 128 frames).
Let me know if this is suitable and any further advice you may have as I am just starting in this area.

Bert

Here is a thread explaining this setup with a video.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=12640

[john_drummond]

Hi Bert,

this sounds great! I guess that you if centre the radiant in the FOV it should pick up the <10 degree length meteors. It may be an idea to also aim the camera at 20 degrees from the raidant one night also, to pick up the longer meteors. Apparantly they are slow meteors so this will help you camera pick them up...

I look forward to any data (pos or neg) that you get.

Thanks heaps.

John

[avandonk]

Friday clouded out but Thursday was reasonable. Obtained two sets of images.
1. 600+ images taken with Canon 5DH and 24mm lens at F4, 30sec at ISO 800 contiguous for sets of about 99 images.FOV 86x57deg.
2. 10000+ images with GstarEX at X64 so combined exposure of each image 1.28 sec. Focal length of lens 12.5mm at F2. FOV 28x24 degrees.

Below are six images.
1. is field near start with Canon
2. is field near start with GstarEX
3. Combined 1&2 with Registar
4. field near end with Canon
5. field near end with GstarEX
6. Combined 4&5 with Registar

All pics are unprocessed ie JPG as they came out of each camera. I did not see any meteor trails in the Canon data. Have not been through all 10,000 GstarEx pics yet.


Bert

[[1ponders]]

Unfortunately no data from SE Qld, we were clouded out.

[john_drummond]

Hi guys,

thanks so much for your attempts.

Bert, I've found that with my Canon 10D (unmodified) and a 20mm f2 lens @ 3200asa I can only get meteors down to about mag 2 - and they appear very faint. I've been watching Levy's radiant for five nights now and believe that there is slight activity in the order of 2-3 meteors an hour - however, most of those were below mag 3 so perhaps your 5DH never got them (I'd be surprised if it did). I'm unsure about the specs of the GStarEx but look forward to any data (if that's okay with you)...

Thanks heaps for this. I'm going out tomorrow morning at about 3:30am - after the Moon sets. It's getting a bit bright and hindering now.

Cheers

John

[avandonk]

I think I found one on the GstarEX. Could be a sporadic. I have only 4000 frames to go. looks to be in about the correct orientation. The signal to noise for a dynamic event on the GstarEx is much better as the exposure was 1.28 sec.

bert

[avandonk]

Checked the canon images and would you believe it it was in between 'sets' , ie off!
Any way will superimpose on the canon image to get a better idea of track. See pic6 below.
If you look carefully the LMC and SMC are in the top left corner.
The fact is it was not on the previous image or on the one after tells us which direction
it came from.

Bert

[avandonk]

All those pictures and got one meteor trail. looks like it did come from Pavo.

Bert