Thomas Ashcraft, New Mexico, USA
Dec. 14, 2008

Editor's note: Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft operates a dual radio-optical meteor monitoring system. An all-sky video camera records fireballs as they streak overhead, while an antenna array records the reflections of distant radio stations from the meteor's ionized trail. The eerie-sounding echoes are wonderful!

Ashcraft's comments: "In the midst of moonlight and fast moving clouds, I am pleased to report a strong showing of Geminid fireballs. Forward scatter reception was saturated with accumulated asteroid dust but still the fireballs rang through."

For the 2008 Geminid meteor shower I was under crystal clear sky in central Iran, at the ancient fire temple of Zorostrian era in Niasar, near Kashan. The show was not much spectacular because of the bright moon but still there was quite a number of beautiful bright meteors.

"Wow! This was one of the best displays of Geminids we've ever seen," says Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. NASA's Asgard-Sentinal meteor camera recorded more than 80 bright Geminids during the long night of Dec. 13-14 in spite of bright moonlight and many clouds. In the movie, note the circular halo that forms around the Moon as it arcs across the sky; that is caused by ice crystals in high clouds.

I am counting meteors with my old, always working, analog system. Last night detecting the Geminids with my meteor radio reflecting system I counted about 118 meteors per hour around the maximum.On a meteor quiet night I detect normally at the same time about 24 meteors per hour. That means 94 Geminids last night around 02.30 UTC. System: VHF56.25 MHZ, audio signal TV transmitter Litouwen. Antenne direction around zenith.

By shielding the moons glare with the roof of the house ,I was able to photograph this Geminid gliding thru Orion's belt. Photo

Photo details: Kodak Z740 at F/2.8 for 8 secs at 400asa.