alpha-Centaurids meteor shower

[circumpolar]

Due to peak this tuesday morning with a ZHR of 5-10. I have never seen this shower and wonder about past observations.
Praying for clear sky. :prey:

[circumpolar]

Just noticed that Astronomy 2006 book has alpha-Centaurids shower listed in the monthly section as the morning of the 7th but also has it listed on page 134 as the 8th.:confuse2:

[Glenn Dawes]

Hi Matty,

Well spotted! I've just checked our sources and the predicted peak for 2006 is indeed Feb 8 @ 5hr UT (3pm EST). So we should have mentioned the morning of the 8th (not 7th) or even the 9th as the closest to this time from Australia.

Sorry about the confusion.

Regards

Glenn D

[iceman]

hmm 5-10 ZHR isn't exactly a barrage is it... oh well, i'll still be up looking for it if it's clear.. I'll be imaging jupiter with one eye and have the other looking towards crux.

We don't get many southern showers do we?

[gaa_ian]

I have already seen several of these Meteors, rising from the southern horizion.
Over the last 2 evenings, quite bright, perhaps Mag 1 or 2 !

[fringe_dweller]

ACE's are ace! Seen some nice ones over the years :) they do have some nice bright ones on occasion, but sporadics often easily rival it and its associated complex. http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/alpha-beta_centaurids.html
Poor old major meteor shower starved far and mid southern hemisphere dwellers :sad: I would think you could count on one hand (if that?) the serious perrenial, dedicated, scientific quality data collecting, meteor shower visual observers that live in this huge watery hemisphere (outside of major events) truly a 'fringe' activity.
Northern Hemisphere devotees seem frequently shocked, disgusted and dumbfounded as to this situation.
As in all the neglected far southern showers, they are very poorly studied, by n.hemi. standards, and most dont even have yet identified or candidate parent bodies http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/meteor_streams.html (note:Quadrantids now have one too) there out there somewhere still? (maybe defunct comets now silent but deadly asteroids) with orbits that have crossed near earths in the past! :scared:
Also worth noting, as you may know meteor showers can sometimes have more than one (timezone favouring) peak and troughs, as we can encounter multiple different and perhaps planet and body perturbed sections of old trails/revolutions of a parent body at different times, and different proximities to the central zones of old and new trails - you never know?, especially if we dont even have a rich recorded anecdotal history of the parent bodies outburst's and/or long accurate records of a shower's activity.

oh well at least the relatively only true sometimes decent 'southern' shower the Eta Aquarids's have a very favourable moon phase this year - first since 2003 (excluding during the TLE in '04) :) not that they have performed too well in recent years.
Good luck anyway Matty - I hope to observe some soon while comet observing as well.
I think it cannot be repeated or emphasised enough for possible newcomers that the 'ZHR' can sometimes seem a somewhat mythical and confusing term - it literally means thats the theoritical rate you would expect if the radiant of the particular shower actually was located in the small area of sky straight up that is the called Zenith, for your latitude - NOT when its at its true highest attainable elevation of night/morning or crossing the meridian, for you locally.
And all this under perfectly clear and very dark, moon free, post midnight skies as well :P http://www.namnmeteors.org/guidechap8.html
I know its only meant as globally applicable standard/guide and it makes sense to do it that way, but it should be called the 'optomistic dream rate' maybe? hehe ;) but I have seen them surparssed sometimes on occasion of course :-))

[gaa_ian]

Hey Fringe ... We are lucky enough here to get a very good annual shower & my favourite, the "Persids" I don't even mind getting up at 4 am to watch them :zzz:
I love meteor showers & usually keep a count etc.
Where is the best place to put in observing reports ?

[fringe_dweller]

I knew you tried to catch the odd meteor shower Ian :)
yes I know there pretty damn good the old Persieds from N.H reports - some nice displays some years, was a nice one in the late 90's from memory? I hear that even from Brisbane they can be pretty good too.
Its my understanding that astronomical societies sometimes have organised meteor section's who do co-ordinated field trips sometimes - I know Vic has for sure anyway?
There's lots of ways I guess, as long as you follow their usually very strict format's and procedures to the letter, and of course the IMO is the big daddy of it all, but their not interested in reports to my knowledge.
But personally I would just post it on meteorobs (http://lists.meteorobs.org/mailman/listinfo/meteorobs), you would have to join first. When I used to post my ob's of Northern Hemisphere favouring showers like the Leonid's, Gem's for instance, I found a few N.H. collators got upset about their nice pure stats being polluted with (what they considered) my corrupt and tainted data - I am too far south to be reliable source of data, as the radiant is to low here. So I didnt bother posting anymore of them. But there are lots of people on there that would still love to see them just the same of course, and you never know who is reading them.
The nice NAMN (http://www.namnmeteors.org/) people will publish them on their site for sure.
But they are definitely interested in far southern shower reports from us - unfortunately there are the less spectacular shows, sadly the northern majors are still easily the best, even at this latitude.
But maybe automated triangulated low light sensitive camera arrays will maybe wipe out scientific value visual work, maybe eventually? And then it would strictly be for fun - dunno? End of another era possibly? gone with visual comet discoverer's?
I find its when there are calls for observations that they most want them, you'll find maybe one researcher or group of researchers is interested in a particular shower at a particular window, - in the background you have all sorts of interested parties,( including the squillion dollar aerospace industry who of course take a strong interest in precisely predictable large swarms of projectiles that may damage their babies, and can take evasive action ect..)
For instance, I was contacted once by a well known researcher about taking part in observing the Alpha Centaurids one year, unfortunately I could only do it from a friends reasonable outer suburban backyard that night, but he was so desperate for help from southerners, he still wanted me to do it anyway. I was just looking out for a possible outburst of bright ones from memory? but the peak happened for South America, also from memory. cant find my notes from this time?
HTH?

[gaa_ian]

Thanks Kearn
That NAMN site is a beauty
I love the map with the reports of fireballs, If only we had one of those for our great southern land !
One of the reports was of a -10 mag groundstike seem from a plane :scared:
Now if that was not the observation of a lifetime, I dont know what would be.
I can see Kearn that if I contributed my meteor obs. I would be the only Aussie there. But they obviously encourage O/S observers as there are quite a few from the EU countries.
I did put in one report last year of particully good fireball, but I think it was to the IMO ? I didn't hear anything from them :confuse3: so I haven't followed up on that.
To me meteor watching is akin to watching a great sunset, thunderstorm etc

[fringe_dweller]

no worries Ian!, yes despite their name, NAMN are the most globally friendly of the lot, and they post all submitted fireball reports on meteorobs anyway.
I know what you mean about parochial fireball reporting sites tho, most seem focused only on local/national activity with either a view to recovery of meteorites for profit, or concerned with differentiating between missile attacks and fireballs, such as NORAD. Most seem concerned only with North American or northern European fireballs of course.
I am only aware of one aussie expert who is even vaguely interested in fireball reports and that would be Tony Beresford here in Adelaide, and Tony is mostly interested from a tracking and monitoring of space junk/decays, and re-entries, point of view, I believe, I could be wrong. But he monitors meteorobs anyway - so anything you post there, the relevent people will see it, even if they dont comment.
There is a yahoo mirror site to the main meteorobs one, if you didnt already know, it is easier to do searches and research i guess http://groups.yahoo.com/group/meteorobs/
Yes the silence is deafening as usual from aussies/southerners in this field, although there are more people into radio meteorobs than visual, and there was a spate of people with low light wide angle all sky cameras (such as mintrons) recording/tracking/studying fireballs and meteors for a while there - even that seems to have died down a bit lately.
Hard to tell with aussies meteor observers as the majority (if they exist?) seem very quiet/shy/humble/lazy/timestrapped/secretive about there goings on, who knows what they do?. hehe :)
I'm not sure, but have I seen you post on meteorobs before Ian?, seems to ring a bell?

[Mikezoom]

So these guys will be peaking in the morning right? Who else will be watching? I have to stay overnight at work but would love to hear of reports in the morning.

Mike. B.

[gaa_ian]

I will be giving it a go, I have my meteor watching chair (comfy banana lounge style) all set up & ready to go !
Must get to bed so I can get up at 4 am :zzz2:

[gaa_ian]

Not much to see just a few meteors an hr .. Morning sky was good though !

[fringe_dweller]

Same here Ian, couple an hour maybe, mostly faintish but fast, was out on my own from 2:30 am till 5am local time - was doing other stuff tho - but it was still pretty quiet, last monday morning was better in quality of examples.

[ChiggaMan]

I think I saw part of this yesterday evening.

See my post: http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=89991#post89991

[iceman]

I saw one of these yesterday morning, heading from Centaurus towards Scorpius, shooting across about 45° of sky lasting approx 1 second.

Was just luck though - I was imaging Jupiter at the time with my face in my laptop, and I looked up thinking "wonder if I'll see any alpha-centaurids", and then whoosh there one goes :)