Geminid Meteor Shower Maximum - Dec 13th/14th

[brianb]

Still quite a few Geminids around tonight, I saw a mag -4 fireball which went almost overhead from norther Auriga through Camelopardalis.

[martinastro]

Sounds like a nice one Brian, I might just head out for another look myself...

[rjgjr]

Beautiful shots Martin.

[martinastro]

Thanks Mark, Dave, and Richard 

Clouded out all last night...

[JohnC]

Perseverance in the chill  well rewarded.

[brianb]

I saw a mag -4 fireball which went almost overhead from norther Auriga through Camelopardalis.

Turns out I captured the first part of the flight of this meteor on one of the images I was taking for photometry of Epsilon Aurigae:


2010 Dec 14, 2314 UT. Canon 40D, 50mm f/1.4, 8 sec @ f/2.0, ND8 filter, ISO 400

Yes, it's recorded nice and bright even through the neutral density filter (which is employed to reduce scintillation noise in the image). The background noise is high because I've effectively boosted the ISO to about 25,600 by messing with the gain in software.

[rjgjr]

Just happend to see 3 Geminids in about 5 minutes this morning about 05:30 in the far west.

[markt]

Saw a nice bright -1 mag geminid on the way to the pub last night so pleased about that 

[Big Dipper]

Congrats on that Mark - and clearly a good reason to go to the pub more often!!    

[RN1]

Been away from logged to this site for a while but check updates daily and think the exchanges here are excellent aswell as the weather stuff stuff that interests me also. I came home from work at 1230 on the night of the peak with a few breaks in cloud and saw one bright meteor. At the time it was cloudy over most of Ireland except the north-west

At the time i also noticed Vega low in the north but in a large clearance so at 0130 i drove to a beauty spot called Lough Talt up in the Ox mountains fourteen miles away, well away from any light pollution. Started observing at 0200 in fantastic conditions,  but very dark and totally clear for ninety minutes. Saw well over 70 meteors many small ones, a good few at least 20 bright fast moving with trails.

At exactly 0207 I was taking photos of the Orion area when there was what appeared to be a double flash of lightning but quickly realised it was a fireball, lit up the landscape dimly for two second, turned around and noticed a large trail in Leo. I did see Martin mention this and also in the North East, although from here I would say only about 15 degrees high.

Of course every time i saw a bright meteor my camera was facing the wrong way, took eighty 30 sec IS0 1600 images only capturing three meteors some even went thru the camera field but didnt pick up. The display defintly intensified after 0245 as started to cloud over with meteors coming in two's and the majority of bright long trailing meteors. Wrapped things up at 0330 as clouded over.







Also several weeks back and on a Saturday I noticed several posts from N Ireland about a Sundog, was also visible in North Mayo



Ronan Newman

See my Site @ www.galwayastronomyclub.com

[Big Dipper]

Welcome aboard Ronan - and I totally agree with your comments about this forum & its members.

Good to see that your dedication paid dividends on the night of the maximum & I can fully sympathize with your comment about the camera always facing the wrong way when a bright meteor chooses to whiz by!