Abstract: A summary of the activity of the CAMS BeNeLux network during the month of August 2020 is presented. The CAMS BeNeLux network experienced favorable weather circumstances this month. As many as 28479 multiple station meteors were recorded. A total of 8756 orbits were collected during this month with a maximum of 90 operational cameras available at 24 stations.
1 Introduction
The Perseid month of August remains the favorite observing month for many amateurs. Moon wise, the circumstances were favorable in 2020 and the only uncertain factor remained the weather. The corona pandemic kept most amateur astronomers at home so that most camera owners remained available for meteor work at home. During most past years, August was the best month of the year in terms of number of orbits. What would August 2020 bring?
2 August 2020 statistics
CAMS BeNeLux collected 28479 multi-station meteors (33231 in August 2019 and 15286 in 2018), good for 8756 orbits (9921 in 2019 and 5403 in 2018). The total for 2020 is less than the absolute record of previous year and still slightly better than August 2017 when 8738 orbits were recorded.
Weather was favorable until August 18–19, the last part of August had rather unstable weather. As many as 25 August nights had more than 100 orbits, 5 nights had more than 500 orbits and the best night was August 12–13 with 720 orbits in a single night. Not any night remained without orbits. The weather was definitely less favorable than in 2019 as less meteors were caught in 2020 with more cameras available than ever before.
The statistics of August 2020 are compared in Figure 1 and Table 1 with the same month in previous years since the start of CAMS BeNeLux in 2012. In 9 years, 249 August nights allowed to obtain orbits with a grand total of 45086 orbits collected in this month during all these years together.
Most camera operators use AutoCams, only some CAMS stations in the Netherlands and Germany do not yet use AutoCAMS. Remote control allows to operate the cameras and to report data during the summer holidays without causing any delays. Three more cameras were active than during August 2019, but a number of technical problems kept the minimum of operational cameras at 59, 6 less than previous year. This year as many as 90 cameras were operational at maximum, 80.7 on average. Especially the RMS cameras generate large numbers of orbits. Their larger field of view and a very good resolution provides overlap with many of the small FoV Watecs at most CAMS stations.
Figure 1 – Comparing August 2020 to previous months of August in the CAMS BeNeLux history. The blue bars represent the number of orbits, the red bars the maximum number of cameras capturing in a single night and the yellow bar the average number of cameras capturing per night.
Table 1 – August 2020 compared to previous months of August.
| Year | Nights | Orbits | Stations | Max. Cams | Min. Camas | Mean Cams |
| 2012 | 21 | 283 | 5 | 6 | 3.2 | |
| 2013 | 27 | 1960 | 13 | 25 | 15.3 | |
| 2014 | 28 | 2102 | 14 | 32 | 20.8 | |
| 2015 | 25 | 2821 | 15 | 45 | 30.4 | |
| 2016 | 30 | 5102 | 20 | 54 | 15 | 46.2 |
| 2017 | 28 | 8738 | 21 | 82 | 45 | 69.9 |
| 2018 | 30 | 5403 | 19 | 72 | 56 | 62.4 |
| 2019 | 29 | 9921 | 23 | 87 | 65 | 79.0 |
| 2020 | 31 | 8756 | 24 | 90 | 59 | 80.7 |
| Total | 249 | 45086 |
It is worthwhile to look at the number of orbits collected with these RMS cameras, compared to the Watecs in the CAMS BeNeLux network. The 20 best scoring cameras during August 2020 are listed in Table 2.
Table 2 – Comparing RMS cameras among the twenty cameras of the CAMS BeNeLux network with the best score in terms of orbits during August 2020.
| Camera | Total orbits | Total nights |
| 003814 (RMS, Grapfontaine, BE) | 1481 | 31 |
| 000378 (RMS, Kattendijke, BE) | 902 | 31 |
| 00329 (RMS, Hengelo, BE) | 617 | 31 |
| 000816 (Watec, Humain, BE) | 613 | 28 |
| 000384 (Watec, Mechelen, BE) | 568 | 31 |
| 003800 (RMS, Langenfeld, DE) | 568 | 31 |
| 003815 (RMS Genk, BE) | 552 | 31 |
| 000379 (Watec, Wilderen, BE) | 507 | 31 |
| 000391 (Watec, Mechelen, BE) | 487 | 31 |
| 000394 (Watec, Dourbes, BE) | 477 | 31 |
| 000399 (Watec, Mechelen, BE) | 466 | 31 |
| 000390 (Watec, Mechelen, BE) | 465 | 31 |
| 000353 (Watec, Ermelo, NL) | 462 | 24 |
| 003005 (Watec, Gronau, DE) | 447 | 23 |
| 003830 (RMS Mechelen, BE) | 446 | 24 |
| 000395 (Watec, Dourbes, BE) | 443 | 31 |
| 003003 (Watec, Gronau, DE) | 433 | 23 |
| 000388 (Watec, Mechelen, BE) | 579 | 31 |
| 000328 (RMS, Hengelo, NL) | 425 | 31 |
| 003035 (Watec, Oostkapelle, NL) | 424 | 29 |
3 Conclusion
August 2020 counted many favorable nights for the CAMS BeNeLux network during the first 18 nights, the last part of August was less favorable. Altogether this month is good for a second best month of August in the CAMS BeNeLux history.
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).
