Orionids?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

We had some much needed rain where I am. Sound like it was a great night Ken.

[Tamtarn]

We went out to dinner last night by the time we got home we just crashed into bed. So we missed the show

Sounds like it was a fantastic night Ken !!

Hope we can catch some Orionids tonight

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Here are some pics from the Orionid show night.

Not of Orionids though!

This is what minus 5 looks like

1. Me rugged up watching the show with my black doggies keeping me warm
2. Darren (Wombat_In_Space) trying to get the ice of his scope

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Sounds great Ken, on a working holiday myself ATM & saw just a few from the resort balcony.
I hope the Lads in Gove did better !

[circumpolar (Matt)]

For all those thinking it's to late to see a good meteor display, think again. I got up at 3:00am to a surprise. Many meteors leaving smoke trains.
The brightest one was at 3:30am maybe -9!!! . I was looking down at the ground when I started cursing "who turned the #!*#!! light on!" The entire lawn lit up like moonlight. I had time to look up and catch the end of it as it surged in brightness again, leaving a train that lasted about eight mins to the naked eye and still visable in binos 20mins later! It was heading straight towards Crux and not going as fast as I had expected.

I guess I saw about 6 meteors brighter then -1, most of them were whitish/blue. The fainter ones seemed to be more yellowish.


Their velocity is listed as 66km/sec (the same as the eta-Aquarids in May this year) but now having seen both showers, I think that the Orionids are slower by about 10%. I am curious if other members agree.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by circumpolar

leaving a train that lasted about eight mins to the naked eye and still visable in binos 20mins later!

sounds a bit odd!

[RAJAH235]

FWIW. We WAACers were at our site a few years ago, at about this time of year, & we saw a few like that.
One trail in particular, was about 15 to 20 degrees long, lasted about 15 mins, naked eye.
The air was dead calm, with a little moisture fairly high up, which made the view possible. It just seemed to 'drift' along, almost complete, with just the slightest disturbances in the trail.
We never thought, (why)?, to try with binoculars, as it was very cold n we were busy, chatting n having coffee n biccies.(Damn it was cold). L.

[circumpolar (Matt)]

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

sounds a bit odd!

The line of smoke did start to spead out and become wider but was still very straight. Don't forget that this was a very bright one.

When I watched the eta-Aquarids at a dark sky location on the morning May 6th 2006, there were sometimes several train visiable at once. I remember that day very well. When I climbed out of my tent at 02:00am and looked up, I saw straight away a meteor leaving a train, then I realised that I was in fact looking at many smoke trains all radiating out from Aqurius! It was fantastic!, my best session as yet.

I find that when I observe showers, I tend to keep glancing back at the area where the last bright meteor was, hoping it might repeat , and when the conditions are still, the trains can last a very long time.

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Wow! that is cooool!

Darren and I didn't search any areas where they had been as we were too busy watching new ones

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Sounds like a great show, reports from gove were good.
One orionid (i presume) lasted a full 6 seconds was green & disappeared over the horizion
There was obviously a lot of meteor activity on that night. As we stepped off the plane in Rocky, I saw a Bolide falling to the eastern horizion, that split in 2 as it disintergrated , & that was under the glare of the airport lights.