CAMS-Florida Report, 19-20 Oct 2018

The night of October 19/20, 65 orbits were determined through simultaneous observation by two or more CAMS-Florida sites. Half of the orbits were Orionids that radiated from a concentrated area in the sky between Orion and Gemini. Orionids are debris from Comet 1P/Halley.

Florida Tech’s CAMS 233 contributed to 24 of the 65 orbital determinations.

The new 8-camera CAMS in Gainesville detected 442 meteors, but just 32 of them were coincident with other CAMS-Florida sensors. What’s needed are more sites to get improved overlapping coverage. Plans are underway to install another 8-camera system, to be situated in the Melbourne area.

LAST NIGHT’S ACTIVITY –

Meteors (w/ orbital determinations)

CAMS 000230 – 20

CAMS 000231 – 30

CAMS 000232 – 34

CAMS 000233 – 24

CAMS 000234 – 28

CAMS 005005 – 23

CAMS 005006 – 8

CAMS 005007 – 1

The previous night’s data are available after 1:45pm ET at the CAMS-Florida web page.

Each plotted point on the celestial map is the radiant of one meteor. Hovering the mouse over the point reveals the solar longitude (i.e., time of observation) the meteor’s calculated radiant in ecliptic coordinates (lambda, beta), and the geocentric velocity (Vg).

If the meteor is associated with a known meteor stream, its IAU number is shown. In that case, clicking on the point brings up an interactive simulation of CAMS-derived orbits from that stream.  IAU No. = 0 means that the meteor is a sporadic, one that is not associated with a known meteor stream.

Some meteors from last night’s CAMS-Florida observations