Abstract: A summary of the activity of the CAMS BeNeLux network during the month of May 2020 is presented. 18592 meteors were detected of which 11584 were multiple station which resulted in 3226 orbits during 29 nights with a maximum of 93 operational cameras available at 24 different CAMS stations.
1 Introduction
The first weeks of May offer nice levels of meteor activity with the eta Aquariids in the early morning hours. The last couple of weeks get shorter nights while the meteor activity decreases to the lowest level of the year. With short nights, low activity and often poor weather this time of the year remains a challenge to collect orbits.
2 May 2020 statistics
May 2020 was an exceptional dry favorable month for meteor work. As many as 18 nights resulted in 100 or more orbits (against 7 in 2019), not bad at all considering the limited number of dark hours at the BeNeLux latitudes this month. Only two nights remained without any orbits, just like in May 2019. The best night of all was May 14–15 with 170 orbits, no record numbers as previous two years had several May-nights with more orbits.
As many as 18592 meteors were detected of which 11584 were multiple station (against 5886 in 2019), good for 3226 orbits (against 1825 in May 2019). 62% of all recorded meteors were multiple station and contributed to obtain orbits. Also, May 2018 offered exceptional favorable weather but then ‘only’ 2426 orbits were collected. More cameras that run all nights make a great difference.
Table 1 – May 2020 compared to previous months of May.
| Year | Nights | Orbits | Stations | Max. Cams | Min. Cams | Mean Cams |
| 2012 | 5 | 13 | 4 | 2 | 2 | |
| 2013 | 13 | 69 | 9 | 13 | 6.8 | |
| 2014 | 22 | 430 | 13 | 31 | 19.7 | |
| 2015 | 25 | 484 | 15 | 42 | 24.2 | |
| 2016 | 26 | 803 | 17 | 52 | 16 | 39.9 |
| 2017 | 24 | 1627 | 19 | 64 | 22 | 52.0 |
| 2018 | 31 | 2426 | 21 | 84 | 64 | 76.6 |
| 2019 | 29 | 1825 | 20 | 84 | 53 | 72.4 |
| 2020 | 29 | 3226 | 24 | 93 | 70 | 90.5 |
| Total | 204 | 10903 |
The statistics for May 2020 are compared in Table 1 with all previous months of May since the start of the CAMS BeNeLux network. The maximum number of operational cameras increased to 93 against 84 one year ago. The number of cameras that remained operational all nights with AutoCAMS increased to 70 against 53 in May 2019. The average number of operational cameras with 90.5 exceeded all previous years. Apart from favorable weather, the awareness to keep cameras operational 7 nights on 7 accounts to a large extent to the record number of orbits.
Since the start of CAMS BeNeLux 204 nights in May allowed to collect as many as 10903 orbits in May.
Figure 1 – Comparing May 2020 to previous months of May in the CAMS BeNeLux history. The blue bars represent the number of orbits, the red bars the maximum number of cameras running in a single night and the yellow bars the average number of cameras running per night.
Figure 1 shows the gain in camera capacity and number of orbits compared to all previous years. The key for success of a camera network is that all stations and all cameras are kept operational all nights.
3 Conclusion
May 2020 was a record month comparable to May 2018 in weather but covered with significant better camera capacity than ever before.
Acknowledgment
Many thanks to all participants in the CAMS BeNeLux network for their dedicated efforts. The data on which this report is based has been taken from the CAMS website[1]. The CAMS BeNeLux team is operated by the following volunteers:
Hans Betlem (Leiden, Netherlands, CAMS 371, 372 and 373), Felix Bettonvil (Utrecht, Netherlands, CAMS 376 and 377), Jean-Marie Biets (Wilderen, Belgium, CAMS 379, 380, 381 and 382), Martin Breukers (Hengelo, Netherlands, CAMS 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326 and 327, RMS 328 and 329), Guiseppe Canonaco (Genk, RMS 3815), Bart Dessoy (Zoersel, Belgium, CAMS 397, 398, 804, 805, 806 and 888), Jean-Paul Dumoulin, Dominique Guiot and Christian Walin (Grapfontaine, Belgium, CAMS 814 and 815, RMS 003814), Uwe Glässner (Langenfeld, Germany, RMS 3800), Luc Gobin (Mechelen, Belgium, CAMS 390, 391, 807 and 808), Tioga Gulon (Nancy, France, CAMS 3900 and 3901), Robert Haas (Alphen aan de Rijn, Netherlands, CAMS 3160, 3161, 3162, 3163, 3164, 3165, 3166 and 3167), Robert Haas (Texel, Netherlands, CAMS 810, 811, 812 and 813), Robert Haas / Edwin van Dijk (Burlage, Germany, CAMS 801, 802, 821 and 822), Kees Habraken (Kattendijke, Netherlands, RMS 000378), Klaas Jobse (Oostkapelle, Netherlands, CAMS 3030, 3031, 3032, 3033, 3034, 3035, 3036 and 3037), Carl Johannink (Gronau, Germany, CAMS 311, 314, 317, 318, 3000, 3001, 3002, 3003, 3004 and 3005), Hervé Lamy (Dourbes, Belgium, CAMS 394 and 395), Hervé Lamy (Humain Belgium, CAMS 816), Hervé Lamy (Ukkel, Belgium, CAMS 393), Koen Miskotte (Ermelo, Netherlands, CAMS 351, 352, 353 and 354), Tim Polfliet (Gent, Belgium, CAMS 396), Steve Rau (Zillebeke, Belgium, CAMS 3850 and 3852), Paul and Adriana Roggemans (Mechelen, Belgium, CAMS 383, 384, 388, 389, 399 and 809, RMS 003830 and 003831), Hans Schremmer (Niederkruechten, Germany, CAMS 803) and Erwin van Ballegoij (Heesch, Netherlands, CAMS 347 and 348).
