Results of the AKM Video Meteor Network - September 2001
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September "surprised" the observers with unusually poor weather. Especially
bad was the first half of the month in central Europe. In the western parts
of Germany there was not even a single clear night in over two weeks, and
in the eastern parts only few cloud gaps could be used. In the second
half of the month the picture improved slightly. Still I myself did not
even have a single night with completely clear skies, for example,
and Detlef Koschny as well as Werfried Kuneth could not gather any
observation at all. It's mainly thanks our two Australian observers that
we still achieved a coverage of well over 20 nights, and because the few
cloud gaps arrived at different times at the European observing sites.
There were not only poor skies in the last few weeks, but also technical
problems within the network. The camera of Mirko Nitschke could only be
reactivated after some reconstruction. The image intensifiers of Ilkka
Yrjola and Joerg Strunk, however, lost most of their sensitivity in a
relatively short period of time. These are both Russian intensifiers which
seem to have a very limited lifetime. On the other hand the same tubes have
been used at Ondrejov observatory for some time now where they still show
no sign of degrading performance.
At least there is some good news: I've updated the video meteor database in
the Internet, so that it now contains all observations until August which
are currently available to me. The database now contains an overall of almost
40,000 meteor records from over 600 observing nights. A large part of the
new data came from our observers at the Canary Islands, who's observations
between July 2000 and March 2001 were appended. The database does not yet
contain the Australian data from May onwards though, which will make up
for another 10,000 meteors. They will probably become accessible by the
end of the year.
1. Observers
============
Code Name Place Camera FOV LM Nights Time Meteors
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BENOR Benitez S. Maspalomas TIMES4 (1.4/50) 20 dg 8 mag 7 50.8 h 133
EVAST Evans L. Thurlow EMILY (1.8/28) 36 dg 5 mag 6 16.4 h 33
KNOAN Knoefel Duesseldorf VIDEOMET (0.75/50) 20 dg 7 mag 3 13.2 h 90
MCNRO McNaught Coonabarabran SSO1 (1.2/85) 13 dg 9 mag 21 180.1 h 1639
MOLSI Molau Aachen AVIS (2.0/35) 40 dg 5 mag 4 16.2 h 111
NITMI Nitschke Dresden VK1 (0.75/50) 20 dg 8 mag 2 7.1 h 42
QUIST Quirk Mudgee SSO-WAT1 (0.85/25) 13 dg 5 mag 22 223.8 h 436
RENJU Rendtel Marquardt CARMEN (1.8/28) 28 dg 5 mag 6 26.4 h 44
AKM2 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 4 20.5 h 145
SPEUL Sperberg Salzwedel AKM1 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 1 2.6 h 10
STRJO Strunk Leopoldshoehe FAMOS (2.0/28) 45 dg 5 mag 5 37.8 h 44
YRJIL Yrjola Kuusankoski NONAME (2.0/35) 35 dg 3 mag 1 6.8 h 5
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Overall 26 601.8 h 2732
2. Observing Times (h)
======================
Sep 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
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BENOR - - - - 7.5 7.0 - - - - 7.3 - - - 7.5
EVAST - - - - - - - 3.1 2.5 1.5 - - - - -
KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4.0 -
MCNRO 5.7 - - - 8.9 9.8 - 9.5 10.1 - - 8.5 8.3 9.0 9.5
MOLSI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NITMI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
QUIST 9.8 - - - - 11.5 - 10.8 10.0 10.3 - - 10.9 9.3 10.9
RENJU - - - - 0.6 - - 2.8 - - - 4.7 - 1.6 -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEUL 2.6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STRJO - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
YRJIL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Sum 18.1 - - - 17.0 28.3 - 26.2 22.6 11.8 7.3 13.2 19.2 23.9 27.9
Sep 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
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BENOR - - - - - 7.3 6.3 - - - - - - - 8.0
EVAST - - - - - 3.1 3.1 - - - - - - 3.1 -
KNOAN - 3.2 6.0 - - - - - - - - - - - -
MCNRO - 8.7 9.7 9.2 9.2 - 9.1 8.4 1.8 - 9.1 7.0 9.4 9.4 9.8
MOLSI - 4.6 2.4 - - - - - 5.8 3.4 - - - - -
NITMI - - - 5.1 - - - - - - 2.0 - - - -
QUIST - 10.5 10.8 10.4 8.2 7.8 10.3 10.4 9.0 10.0 10.2 10.8 10.7 10.5 10.7
RENJU 8.1 8.6 - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - 5.4 - - - 9.6 - - 4.8 - - 0.7 -
SPEUL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STRJO - 8.5 - - - - - - 7.9 8.8 4.5 - 8.1 - -
YRJIL - - 6.8 - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Sum 8.1 44.1 35.7 30.1 17.4 18.2 28.8 28.4 24.5 22.2 30.6 17.8 28.2 23.7 28.5
3. Results (Meteors)
====================
Sep 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
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BENOR - - - - 17 25 - - - - 15 - - - 20
EVAST - - - - - - - 11 6 2 - - - - -
KNOAN - - - - - - - - - - - - - 48 -
MCNRO 24 - - - 23 50 - 109 148 - - 24 102 50 126
MOLSI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NITMI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
QUIST 15 - - - - 31 - 13 25 11 - - 27 44 28
RENJU - - - - 7 - - 5 - - - 8 - 2 -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SPEUL 10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STRJO - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
YRJIL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Sum 49 - - - 47 106 - 138 179 13 15 32 129 144 174
Sept 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
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BENOR - - - - - 19 13 - - - - - - - 24
EVAST - - - - - 3 8 - - - - - - 3 -
KNOAN - 11 31 - - - - - - - - - - - -
MCNRO - 98 154 141 168 - 88 96 8 - 100 56 27 33 14
MOLSI - 52 9 - - - - - 31 19 - - - - -
NITMI - - - 39 - - - - - - 3 - - - -
QUIST - 5 30 15 22 24 21 17 3 19 10 17 18 29 12
RENJU 13 9 - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - 63 - - - 52 - - 29 - - 1 -
SPEUL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
STRJO - 16 - - - - - - 11 4 1 - 12 - -
YRJIL - - 5 - - - - - - - - - - - -
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Sum 13 191 229 258 190 46 130 165 53 42 143 73 57 66 50
Sirko Molau, 2001/10/11