2011 Quadrantid Observing Report
by
Many of the 2010 meteor showers were either clouded or mooned out. That
included the recent December Geminids, and locally we also got skunked
on the December 21 Total Lunar Eclipse. So despite the cold (22 degrees
F), an early morning appointment (7:30 am), and a “been there, done that
attitude,” I decided to spend no more than an hour observing the 2011
Quadrantid meteor shower during the early morning of January 4.
I awoke at 5:00 pm and bundled up for the cold weather. At least it was
not windy. The sky was mostly clear, though I did see “some high thin
stuff” scattered around the periphery of my tree-enshrouded horizon.
The handle of the Big Dipper was almost directly overhead as I stepped
out on my porch. I immediately saw a Quad – perhaps 0 magnitude and of
short duration. I sat down in the one piece of porch furniture I had
deliberately left out on the porch for this event. Ten additional Quads
and one sporadic followed in the 50 minutes that I observed. Most were
very short and not very bright. Only a couple attained a -1 magnitude
brightness. And only a couple blazed across several tens of degrees of
sky. All were white in coloration.
I also observed three satellites during this time frame. The sky
remained mostly clear throughout the observing session. When I retired
for a couple of winks, Gemini was lowering towards the west-northwest
horizon, Leo was halfway to the western horizon, Hercules was well up in
the east-northeast, and brilliant Venus shone like a beacon in the
southeast. It was a nice start to the New Year!
