Results of the IMO Video Meteor Network - November 2004
=======================================================

November 2004 was a typical late autumn month with only rare clear skies.
A stable high pressure system established over central Europe towards the 
end of the month, but it came with ground and high fog and prevented at
many sites any observation until the second half of December. So it comes
as no surprise, that nobody collected more than 16 observing nights. Even
though the nights are long at this time of the year, only two observer
logged more than a hundred hours of observing time.

The Leonids are without doubt the most interesting meteor shower of November.
Even though the times of meteor storms are over, there were a number of
dust trails supposed to present zenithal rates of a few ten meteors per hour 
in 2004. Of special interest was the 1333 trail, which was predicted to cause
Leonid activity well before the usual activity period on November 8/9. Beside 
the "regular" peak of the background component on the morning of November 17, 
two more maxima were predicted for the morning and evening of November 19 (but 
not in the European observing window). And what of all this could be found 
in the video data?

To answer this question, I first selected all observations after midnight UT;
times before midnight were ignored. Only after midnight, the Leonid radiant
is high enough in the European night sky to produce noticable activity.
Next the activity period of the Leonids was extended to all of November, and
the meteor shower assignment of all observation was recomputed. Finally, all
observations of a night were summarized, and the ratio between the number of
Leonids and sporadic meteors was computed as an estimate of the meteor shower 
activity. The result is shown in the next figure, where only nights with 
at least ten sporadic meteors are displayed.



Stane Slavec was the first to clearly detect Leonid activity as early as
November 7/8 (5 LEO, 27 SPO), followed by a longer lull. On November 8/9,
there was only one camera active in the morning, and it started after midnight
UT such that the period of the 1333 dust trail could not be covered.
On November 12/13 the activity increased clearly (14 LEO, 28 SPO). It briefly
reduced in the follwing night (37 LEO, 149 SPO), but it stayed at the same high
level (ratio of 1:2 between Leonids and sporadic meteors) between November 
16/17 and 19/20. From November 20/21 to 24/25 there was still a clear
sign of Leonid activity (9 LEO and 35 SPO in the last night), but after that
the shower effectively vanished.

Bottom line: None of the predicted dust trail could be identified, but it is
still amazing over what a long period of time the Leonids are noticable in
the video data.


1. Observers
============

Code    Name        Place           Camera         FOV    LM Nights Time Meteors
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR Benitez-S.  Maspalomas    TIMES5 (0.8/6)    50 dg  3 mag  13  116.1 h  108
EVAST Evans       Moreton       RF1 (1.2/12)      20 dg  3 mag   2   18.0 h   86
KACJA Kac         Kostanjevec   METKA (0.8/8)     42 dg  2 mag  10   67.9 h  124
MOLSI Molau       Seysdorf      AVIS2 (1.4/50)    60 dg  6 mag   8   36.6 h  509
                                MINCAM1 (1.4/12)  35 dg  4 mag  15   73.7 h   93
SLAST Slavec      Ljubljana     KAYAK1 (1.8/28)   50 dg  4 mag   9   64.1 h  342
STRJO Strunk      Leopoldshoehe MINCAM2 (0.8/8)   42 dg  4 mag  16   82.2 h  263
                                MINCAM3 (0.8/6)   55 dg  3 mag  10   60.3 h  258
UEBST Ueberschaer Aachen        MIMO (0.95/25)    13 dg  4 mag   5   37.1 h   72
YRJIL Yrjola      Kuusankoski   FINEXCAM (0.8/6)  50 dg  3 mag  16  102.9 h  325
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum                                                             29  658.9 h 2180


2. Observing Times (h)
======================

Nov    01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR   -    -    -    -    -   7.0 11.3  6.5   -    -    -    -   7.7   -    -
EVAST   -    -    -   8.5   -    -    -    -    -    -    -   9.5   -    -    -
KACJA   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   3.1   -    -    -
MOLSI   -    -    -    -    -    -    -   0.7   -    -    -    -    -  10.8  2.7
        -    -    -   2.8  0.8  0.8   -   2.9  4.4   -    -    -   1.0 12.6  5.2
SLAST   -    -    -    -    -    -   7.3   -   1.9   -    -    -    -    -    -
STRJO  0.8   -   2.0  5.2  5.7  5.6  2.8  9.2   -   2.7  9.3  0.6   -   9.4   -
        -    -    -    -   3.2  5.6  2.5 10.3   -    -   8.1   -    -   6.4   -
UEBST   -    -    -    -    -    -    -   5.4   -    -   6.3   -    -    -    -
YRJIL  9.5  6.1  1.6   -   1.0   -    -    -   3.5   -    -    -   2.1  6.4  9.4
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum   10.3  6.1  3.6 16.5 10.7 19.0 23.9 35.0  9.8  2.7 23.7 13.2 10.8 45.6 17.3

Nov    16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR 11.0   -    -  11.5  9.4 11.8 11.8  3.8  8.1   -    -    -    -  10.8  5.4
EVAST   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
KACJA  6.1  6.1   -   6.1  6.0  6.1   -    -   6.1  6.0 10.7 11.6   -    -    -
MOLSI   -    -    -    -   6.0  0.7   -   8.9  5.2  1.6   -    -    -    -    -
        -    -    -   2.8  3.5  3.4   -  11.7 13.5  7.6   -   0.7   -    -    -
SLAST  5.7  3.6   -   9.7 11.3 11.2  5.8  0.8  6.8   -    -    -    -    -    -
STRJO   -    -    -   1.3  1.2   -    -  10.2  9.1  7.1   -    -    -    -    -
        -    -    -    -    -    -    -  11.7 10.0  2.5   -    -    -    -    -
UEBST   -    -    -    -   8.3   -    -   7.6  9.5   -    -    -    -    -    -
YRJIL  8.6 10.8  3.3 12.8  4.6  9.2   -    -   0.9 13.1   -    -    -    -    -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum   31.4 20.5  3.3 44.2 50.3 42.4 17.6 54.7 69.2 37.9 10.7 12.3   -  10.8  5.4


3. Results (Meteors)
====================

Nov    01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR   -    -    -    -    -   18   19    3    -    -    -    -    3    -    -
EVAST   -    -    -   16    -    -    -    -    -    -    -   70    -    -    -
KACJA   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    2    -    -    -
MOLSI   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    3    -    -    -    -    -  287   21
        -    -    -    4    2    1    -    1    9    -    -    -    1   17    1
SLAST   -    -    -    -    -    -   54    -    4    -    -    -    -    -    -
STRJO   3    -    4   23   16   13   10   27    -    9   29    3    -   27    -
        -    -    -    -   10   15    9   50    -    -   30    -    -   30    -
UEBST   -    -    -    -    -    -    -   17    -    -    9    -    -    -    -
YRJIL  37   15    2    -    3    -    -    -   10    -    -    -    6   20   13
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum    40   15    6   43   31   47   92  101   23    9   68   75   10  381   35

Nov    16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BENOR   3    -    -    8   17   17    5    4    1    -    -    -    -    9    1
EVAST   -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
KACJA   8    9    -    7    8   16    -    -   15   15   16   28    -    -    -
MOLSI   -    -    -    -   37    4    -  137   16    4    -    -    -    -    -
        -    -    -   11    2    1    -   20   16    6    -    1    -    -    -
SLAST  27   55    -   53   47   51   25    1   25    -    -    -    -    -    -
STRJO   -    -    -    6    6    -    -   37   33   17    -    -    -    -    -
        -    -    -    -    -    -    -   62   41   11    -    -    -    -    -
UEBST   -    -    -    -   22    -    -   13   11    -    -    -    -    -    -
YRJIL  33   40   15   58   12   28    -    -    1   32    -    -    -    -    -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sum    71  104   15  143  151  117   30  274  159   85   16   29    -    9    1 

Sirko Molau, 2004/12/18