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This page was last modified on May 10, 1998 by Marco Langbroek and Casper ter Kuile |
Lyrids 1998: Visual Observations
team Delphinus at Biddinghuizen (Marco Langbroek & Koen Miskotte)
Hello everybody,
Below the Lyrid data of the night 22/23 April 1998 of Koen Miskotte and me.
After 2.5 months with (except 2 nights in March) extremely bad weather, the Lyrid maximum night has been clear in our country!
At Biddinghuizen, we had a nice clear and dark sky, with Lm up to +6.7, during the whole of the night. Only during the last hour or so, the advancing front signalling the return to instable weather for coming days became visible as a low bank of cirrus in the south-southeast (below 10-15 degrees). So we have been very lucky with the weather we can say. At this moment (late afternoon) it is....raining!
Activity was good. Nice meteor rates, nice meteors. The brightest lyrid we have seen was of -2/-3 calibre. Some activity of mu Virginids and alpha Bootids too. Some nice Lyrids seen before we started observations, while still putting up our equipment. In general, it all complied well with an expected maximum early in the night (20h UT according to the DMS curve). The data of both Koen and me result in a ZHR of 14 +/- 2 for our observational interval (roughly 21:30-2:45 UT), which is indeed what it should be for this solar longitude.
In morning twilight, we were able to observe the close conjunction between venus, jupiter and the moon. As the small lunar sickle rose near 5:30 local time, venus became visisble close to it. after some time, we could also discern jupiter. A very fine conjunction indeed!
Robert Haas first employed his finished portable camera array. This is a true marvel of engeneering: it comes as a compact flight case easy to stuff away in your car trunk, and then you only have to release two clamps, take out the electro-motor of the rotating shutter and put it in the correct space in the setup, srew the shutter blade to it, turn a switch and there it runs!!!! 1-2 minutes at best from the moment you take it from your car-trunk. Ingenious, and very handsome to see too! This will be very good for 'crash-campaigns'.
Koen had brought some delicious croissants with chocolate and cream with him. But I am still not sure what Casper did with the coffee: after I had taken some, I developed a terrible hickup for a full hour (you should hear the tape: "Ly -hick- rid, magni -hick- tude +3 -hick!", for over a full hour!). And no, we will not make comments in public about Casper's headdress...
As it seems, this campaign also meant a 'goodbye' to Biddinghuizen. Most likely, this was our last campaign from this fine location. The family Appel has decided to stop their farm and to retire. This includes moving to another home. We are very sorry to loose the spot that is so excellent for observing, and to which so much precious moments are attached for us.....
Luckily, the Appel family does not move far from the current location. They found a new home some 7 km west of the farm. That is a location that must be as good in sky conditions and absence of light pollution as the current location. And Mr. and Mrs. Appel made very clear to us that they would like to see us joining them again at their new home! Since their new home has some 7 acre property surrounding it, there must be enough space for our team.
Cheers! :-)
-Marco Langbroek
Dutch meteor Society
Date: April 22/23, 1998 Location: Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands, 52d 29'N, 5d 41' E Observer: Marco Langbroek (LANMA) UT Teff Lm Lyr mVir aBoo Spo ZHR +- 21:26-22:28 0.90 6.6 5 0 0 8 10 5 22:28-23:42 1.13 6.7 19 3 3 8 20 5 23:42-00:50 1.02 6.7 12 4 1 11 11 3 00:50-02:07 1.28 6.7 25 3 0 12 14 3 02:07-02:45 0.64 6.3 10 1 1 2 15 5 TOTAL 4.97 <6.7> 71 11 5 47 <14 +- 2> 134 meteors in total -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6Lyrids 1 1 5 4 11 13 20 10 6 3.2 Sporadics 1 3 2 11 18 9 3 3.7 mu Vir 1 2 3 3 2 3.3 alfa Boo 2 3 3.6 Observer: Koen Miskotte (MISKO) UT Teff Lm Lyr Vir aBoo Spo ZHR +- 21:20-22:25 1.07 6.55 4 0 2 8 9 5 22:25-23:27 1.03 6.50 12 3 0 7 20 6 23:27-00:30 0.93 6.50 9 1 1 18 13 4 00:30-01:35 1.08 6.40 10 1 0 12 11 4 01:35-02:37 1.03 6.23 12 1 0 13 14 4 TOTAL 5.15 <6.5> 47 6 3 58 <14 +- 2> 114 meteors in total -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lyrids 1 1 1 4 8 12 14 5 1 3.0 Virginids 1 0 0 2 3 0 3.8 alfa Boo 2 1 0 0 0 2.3 Sporadics 2 3 10 26 16 1 3.9
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This page was last modified on May 10, 1998 by Marco Langbroek and Casper ter Kuile |