Quadrantids Meteor Shower! - January 3rd

davidbridges

davidbridges

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David Bridges
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Hi all,

I think you should mark this one on your calendar as it is ment to be one of the biggest showers that is capable producing 80 meteors an hour. We are lucky here in the U.K as the best place to see them is directly above us which means people viewing in the southern hemisphere see basically nothing. The best time to see them is from nightfall until midnight so you don't have to stay up late or wake up early to see these.

I hope you guys can all remember the Geminids a few weeks ago when all of TP had no shots of a meteor (to what i am aware of) So hopefully we will have clear skies and we can all give it a bash whether your using a kit lens a nifty or even a telephoto.

Dave

(if i have got any info wrong just tell me :) )
 
Nice one Dave.. i'l look out for em for sure.. as long as theres no pesky clouds in the way!!.. and iv just recieved my remote shutter release so im all ready for em..
 
Im off tomorrow for a shutter release or a remote (can a remote do bulb exposures ? )
 
Yes David it can :)
 
Whats the best settings to use for astrophotography ?
 
Use a LOW ISO and id say a mediun sized apperture.. and a LOOOOOng exposure.. :thumbs:

In a nut shell.. :thumbs:


Oh! and a tripod!!!
 
I had a quicl look at a site about these and they seem to be VERY hard to spot.

The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the year's best, regularly producing 50 to 120 meteors per hour. Yet it is seldom observed. Why?

One reason is weather. The shower peaks in early January when northern skies are cold and cloudy. The shower's radiant is located high in the northern sky, so observers in the southern hemisphere, where the weather might be more favorable, see almost nothing.

Another reason is brevity. The shower doesn't last long, only a few hours. Even dedicated meteor watchers are likely to miss such a sharp maximum. In his classic book Meteor Astronomy, Prof. A.C.B. Lovell lamented that "useful counts of the Quadrantid rate were made in [only] 24 Januaries out of a possible 68 between 1860 and 1927. ... The maximum rate during this period appears to have occurred in 1932 (80 per hour) although the results are influenced by unfavorable weather."

The source of the Quadrantid meteor shower was unknown until Dec. 2003 when Peter Jenniskens of the NASA Ames Research Center found evidence that Quadrantid meteoroids come from 2003 EH1, an "asteroid" that is probably a piece of a comet that broke apart some 500 years ago. Earth intersects the orbit of 2003 EH1 at a perpendicular angle, which means we quickly move through any debris. That's why the shower is so brief.
Click to expand...
 
Other than up, any other particular direction we should be looking in? :shrug:
 
I think the origin is north-west ish from a couple of the star maps I've seen. So point your camera towards the north star to get the highest chance of getting one on film.

(I think)
 
fender87 said:
Whats the best settings to use for astrophotography ?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you want... for star-trails, a good long
exposure, or, depending on the lens you're using somewhere
in the region of 20-30secs will produce some nice constellation shots, without too much trailing.
I find setting my canon to ISO 400, and the aperture
to 1 stop less than full open, and exposure at 20 secs
gives me some satisfactory results (just getting the
focus right is the main problem :bonk:)

The maximum exposure without trails is dependant on
the lens you use, the smaller the lens, the longer the
exposure, the larger, the shorter the exposure ...
 
struggled to see the sky during the day so I had no chance at night!
 
I saw one meteor on the 2nd, and none scince. :(
Anyone have any luck?

According to wikipedia, the next showers are from April to May, but the next big one (60 per hour) is in June! Looks like we could be in for a long wait!
 
Nope, it was threatening to snow that night (never did though :() so there was no chance of seeing the sky.
 
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