QUADRANTID METEOR SHOWER

4th January 2004

1004x-JG camera in video mode with standard 3.8mm fl lens

Conditions were poor with 50% cloud cover and moonlight. Video frames with visible meteor trails were combined to produce this composite image showing 6 trails between 04:25 and 05:16 UT. The image is centred approximately on the celestial pole and a motorised tracking mount was used. The gaps in the trails are caused by the computer sampling the video frames at 15fps (the maximum reliable capture rate with a rather slow computer)

The camera was unfortunately pointing at a relatively cloudy part of the sky for most of the time. By observing throught the gaps in the clouds a total of 24 meteors were counted visually in the period 04:35 to 05:15. After this time, the sky was totally clouded out.

The diagram below shows the imaged trails projected back towards the radiant which is at 15h20m RA, +49 deg Dec, approximately at the top right of the image (The bright spot at top right is in fact a meteor trail seen almost exactly head on) The positions of Polaris and Kochab are plotted based on their recorded positions during gaps in the cloud cover.