Geminid maximum clouded out...

[Rick]

Here out West the night of the Geminid maximum was completely clouded out. The previous few nights weren't so bad, but nothing (yet) to match last year's most spectacular night. Maybe there'll be a clear night in the next few days...

(Don't mention the flying pigs...)

Edit: Apparently folk using the readio beacon at Sherwood Observatory recorded a good bit of meteor activity. There's a live the Meteor Beacon Project web site at  https://ukmeteorbeacon.org/beaconclient/

[Rick]

Last night was rather better. Both cameras had about four and a half clear hours (with more viewing through patchy cloud) and they each caught over 200 Geminids, though because the fields of view overlap a bit, some will have been caught by both cameras. It'll take a while to generate the tracked-stack from that lot, though the fact that some frames had two or more meteors on them will help a bit...

[Rick]

Here's quite a nice bright Geminid that was caught by both my cameras:

https://archive.ukmeteors.co.uk/reports/2023/orbits/202312/20231213/20231213_223640.628_UK/index.html

[Rick]

In the end I got five not-too-cloudy nights with some reasonable Geminid activity, the nights of 9th, 10th, 11th, 13th and 14th, and two nights with just one or two...

Code Select Expand

Date  3X      9P
 8th   0 and   1
 9th  42 and  32
10th  23 and  21
11th  41 and  43
12th clouded out
13th 231 and 215
14th  57 and  39
15th   0 and   2
Tot. 394 and 343

See this post in the Astrophotography section.

[Rick]

Some folks are using the GB3MBA 50MHz meteor scatter beacon at the Sherwood Observatory to do meteor counts, and they've obviously been less affected by the weather. Here's report from an observer in Ireland explaining a bit about the work and equipment involved.