Results of the AKM Video Meteor Network - March 2002 ==================================================== March started for the European observers as little promising as the previous two months of 2002. There were short spells of clear skies, but most of the time it was overcasted and rainy. Only at the end of March the picture improved clearly. A stable high pressure system established over Germany, which kept clouds at large distances and presented a number of clear nights. The fine weather persisted over the Easter holidays well into April. The waning moon and haze kept the number of recorded meteors in the first nights low, but later the observers recorded more meteors again. At the Canary islands the poor weather continued, resulting in only a few nights contributed by Orlando Benitez-Sanchez. In addition, his cameras was out of focus which significantly reduced the number of recorded meteors. Unfortunately, the series of technical breakdowns continued in March. First Steve Quirk experienced a hard disc crash which prevented further observations after March 12. Then it was the power supply of Stephen Evans' camera that failed with a spectacular 'big bang', which is why he also had to suspend observations in the second part of March. Finally the hard disc of Andre Knoefel died as well and destroyed about ten observing nights worth of data from March an April. As mentioned earlier, Joerg Strunk had to quit observations temporarily, as his image intensifier tube got blind. All in all no promising March statistics. So it's a little surprising that the effective observing time still increased compared to March 2001. On March 22-24 the annual AKM spring meeting was held in northern Germany. One of the topics discussed was the video equipment of the future. It will be the aim to replace the expensive and sensitive heart of today's cameras - the image intensifier. New video cameras with Sony's ExView HAD technology are a step forward, but the limiting magnitude of these falls still some mag short of image intensified cameras. The main problem is the tiny CCD chip. At an f-stop of f/1.4, the free aperture of a suitable video lens with few milimeters focal length is much smaller than that of photographic lenses of the same f-stop used with image-intensified cameras. In fact, the image intensifier is effectively not used as an intensifiers, but as a focal reducer that feeds the light of a large format photographic lens into the small CCD chip. One suggested alternative is to use an optical coupling system made of fiber optics. Larger CCD chips will have the same effect, but their appearance on the mass market will probably still take some time. 1. Observers ============ Code Name Place Camera FOV LM Nights Time Meteors -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR Benitez S. Maspalomas TIMES4 (1.4/50) 20 dg 4 mag 3 20.8 h 33 EVAST Evans L. Thurlow EMILY (1.4/50) 21 dg 6 mag 1 3.0 h 6 KOSDE Koschny Noordwijkerh. ICC4 (0.85/25) 25 dg 6 mag 9 56.0 h 153 MCNRO McNaught Coonabarabran SSO1 (1.2/55) 19 dg 8 mag 13 96.4 h 1948 MOLSI Molau Aachen AVIS (2.0/35) 40 dg 5 mag 13 76.0 h 163 NITMI Nitschke Dresden VK1 (0.75/50) 20 dg 8 mag 5 19.5 h 46 QUIST Quirk Mudgee SSO-WAT1 (0.85/25) 13 dg 5 mag 11 87.7 h 197 RENJU Rendtel Marquardt AKM2 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 11 67.2 h 129 SPEUL Sperberg Salzwedel AKM1 (0.85/25) 32 dg 6 mag 6 42.9 h 112 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 28 469.5 h 2787 2. Observing Times (h) ====================== March 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - - - - - - - - 5.6 8.0 - - 7.2 - - EVAST 3.0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - KOSDE 9.9 5.1 - - - - 6.1 - - - 1.9 - 9.1 - - MCNRO - 8.2 8.5 - 7.8 7.7 8.3 - - 8.8 - 8.4 8.2 7.0 - MOLSI - - 10.3 4.9 - - 5.6 - - 6.2 2.0 - - - - NITMI - 2.9 - - - - - 3.4 - 5.1 3.1 - - - - QUIST 8.7 9.7 9.8 9.2 - 8.8 6.8 7.7 9.6 10.4 4.0 3.0 - - - RENJU - 2.5 - - - - - 9.4 - 8.3 8.7 - - - - SPEUL - - - - - - - - - - 8.5 - - - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 21.6 28.4 28.6 14.1 7.8 16.5 26.8 20.5 15.2 46.8 28.2 11.4 24.5 7.0 - March 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - KOSDE - - - - - - 8.3 6.9 4.4 - - 4.3 - - - - MCNRO - - 7.5 6.8 2.0 - - 7.2 - - - - - - - - MOLSI 1.5 - - - - - - - 5.7 5.2 7.2 8.6 3.5 8.5 - 6.8 NITMI - 5.0 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - QUIST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - RENJU - - 1.4 - 5.0 - 3.7 - - - - 8.1 3.9 8.0 - 8.2 SPEUL - 9.4 - - - - - - - - - 2.0 7.9 8.1 - 7.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 1.5 14.4 8.9 6.8 7.0 - 12.0 14.1 10.1 5.2 7.2 23.0 15.3 24.6 - 22.0 3. Results (Meteors) ==================== March 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - - - - - - - - 12 11 - - 10 - - EVAST 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - KOSDE 30 18 - - - - 34 - - - 2 - 33 - - MCNRO - 45 78 - 106 122 170 - - 238 - 285 194 199 - MOLSI - - 34 22 - - 17 - - 7 2 - - - - NITMI - 3 - - - - - 5 - 21 6 - - - - QUIST 25 33 23 18 - 13 21 14 15 30 3 2 - - - RENJU - 5 - - - - - 20 - 39 16 - - - - SPEUL - - - - - - - - - - 30 - - - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 61 104 135 40 106 135 242 39 27 346 59 287 237 199 - March 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENOR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EVAST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - KOSDE - - - - - - 4 22 1 - - 9 - - - - MCNRO - - 194 166 27 - - 124 - - - - - - - - MOLSI 3 - - - - - - - 9 7 14 19 3 19 - 7 NITMI - 11 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - QUIST - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - RENJU - - 2 - 8 - 8 - - - - 8 1 15 - 7 SPEUL - 37 - - - - - - - - - 3 14 15 - 13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sum 3 48 196 166 35 - 12 146 10 7 14 39 18 49 - 27 Sirko Molau, 2002/04/15