Meteor Activity Outlook for February 27-March 5, 2010
Carl Hergenrother February 26, 2010 Meteors
The Meteor Activity Outlook is a weekly summary of expected meteor activity written by Robert Lunsford, Operations Manager of the American Meteor Society and contributor to this blog. The original unedited version of this week’s Meteor Activity Outlook can be found at the American Meteor Society’s site.
March is the slowest month for meteor activity. No major annual showers are active and only two very weak minor showers produce activity this month. The sporadic rates continue a slow decline as seen from the mid-northern latitudes and mid-southern rates reach a first half minimum. There is not much to look forward to this month expect for the evening fireballs that seem to peak this time of year from the northern hemisphere. This could be due to the fact the antapex radiant lies highest above the horizon this time of year during the evening hours.
During this period the moon reaches its full phase on Sunday February 28th. At this time the bright moon will be in the sky all night long making meteor observing difficult at best. As the week progresses the moon will rise later and later in the evening offering a few hours of dark sky between the end of evening twilight and moonrise.The estimated total hourly rates for evening observers this week is ~1 for those in the northern hemisphere and ~2 for those south of the equator. For morning observers the estimated total hourly rates should be ~5 from the northern hemisphere and ~7 as seen from the southern hemisphere. The actual rates will also depend on factors such as personal light and motion perception, local weather conditions, alertness and experience in watching meteor activity.
The radiant positions and rates listed below are exact for Saturday night/Sunday morning February 27/28. These positions do not change greatly day to day so the listed coordinates may be used during this entire period.
The full descriptions of each active meteor shower will continue next week when the moon becomes less of a nuisance to observers.
The list below presents a condensed version of the expected activity this week. Rates and positions are exact for Saturday night/Sunday morning.
Shower Name                RA     DEC   Vel     Rates
km/s   NH    SH
ANT Antihelions          11h 28m  +02    30     1     1
GNO Gamma Normids        15h 44m  -52    56    <1    <1
RA - Right Ascension
DEC - Declination
Vel - Velocity relative to Earth (in km per sec)
Rates - Rate of visible meteors per hour from a
dark site
NH - Northern Hemisphere
SH - Southern Hemisphere
antihelions, astronomy, gamma normids, Meteors
My location is 20 miles ESE of Rochester, NY and I also observed this fireball before midnight on March 4th. It lasted approximately 1.5 seconds and traveled over approximately 7 degrees, low in the northeastern sky. Did not see blue color, more brillant white / green. Very impressive sight indeed!
April 5, 2010 – approx 8:30pm EST. West Island Montreal- MacDoanld Campus – McGill University – 1-2 second bright light, size of a baseball, incredible speed. Disappeard at about 50-60 feet above the ground. Looked like it was about 100-200 yards ahead of me. Never seen one so close before. Was quite amazing, unfortunately could not find anything on the ground.
Hey Paul- I went down into the area to look for it but it is a large area of thick forest/bush area under a bridge/rod. Too thick to search out-need more people. Along Eglinton Ave. this is the only portion of the avenue that does not have apartment buildings and commerical buildings on each side. There were 2 of us in the car that saw it and also coincidentally my daughter also saw it from her window as it also faces north east. Again, it was not travelling that fast as it stremed across our car and went right own into the bush area.
Timmins Ontario, November 7, about 7:15 local time, my tenant and I were looking at a very very bright light in the clear Southeast sky that did not move for the whole 15min we watched, and was 4 bright lights strung together vertically. My tenant well versed in the constellations agreed that it was too close to be any cluster of stars. About 10 minutes later, we saw a blue streak come down but it was farther over. After about 20min we went online to see if we could find any news about what it could be and five min later when we looked out again, it was completely gone. Can anyone tell me what this was?