e-Zine for meteor observers meteornews.net ISSN 2570-4745 VOL 3 / ISSUE 5 / NOVEMBER 2018 Draconids outburst as observed from Hum, Croatia. Credit: Aleksandar Merlak Zeta Cassiopeiids case study 2018 Draconids outburst 2017 Report BOAM Radio observations Perseids 2018 10 October Benelux Fireball 2018 – 5 eMeteorNews Contents Zeta Cassiopeiids (ZCS-444) Paul Roggemans and Peter Cambell-Burns ............................................................................................ 225 December 2015 Geminids adventure Pierre Martin........................................................................................................................................... 233 Visual observations 2016 Pierre Martin........................................................................................................................................... 239 Visual observations 2017 Pierre Martin........................................................................................................................................... 245 2017 Report BOAM, October to December 2017 Tioga Gulon ............................................................................................................................................ 252 2018 Perseid expedition to Crete Kai Gaarder ............................................................................................................................................ 263 August 2018 visual observations Pierre Martin........................................................................................................................................... 267 Perseids 2018 report from northern Italy Enrico Stomeo ......................................................................................................................................... 275 Perseids observed using low-cost Raspberry Pi based meteor stations Denis Vida, Aleksandar Merlak and Damir Šegon ................................................................................. 276 Preview: Perseid observations from Aubenas Les Alps, Southern France Koen Miskotte .......................................................................................................................................... 277 Autumn 2018 observations Pierre Martin........................................................................................................................................... 280 Meteor detection by infrasound method Jonas Schenker ........................................................................................................................................ 284 First impressions of the 2018 Draconids outburst Paul Roggemans ...................................................................................................................................... 293 Draconid outburst observed October 8th 2018 by CAMS BeNeLux Carl Johannink ........................................................................................................................................ 296 2018 Draconids as seen by a low-cost RPI based meteor camera Denis Vida, Aleksandar Merlak and Damir Šegon ................................................................................. 298 Fireball over BeNeLux 10 October 2018, 21h14m11s UT Carl Johannink and Paul Roggemans ..................................................................................................... 300 Fireball over Northern Europe, 10 October 2018, 21h14m11s UT François Colas ........................................................................................................................................ 304 Radio meteors – July 2018 Felix Verbelen ......................................................................................................................................... 308 Radio meteors – August 2018 Felix Verbelen ......................................................................................................................................... 312 eMeteorNews 2018 – 5 Radio meteors – September 2018 Felix Verbelen ......................................................................................................................................... 316 Radio meteors – October 2018 Felix Verbelen ......................................................................................................................................... 321 CAMS-Florida report, 19-20 October 2018 J. Andreas (Andy) Howell ....................................................................................................................... 326 2018 – 5 eMeteorNews © eMeteorNews eMeteorNews 2018 – 5 Zeta Cassiopeiids (ZCS-444) Paul Roggemans1 and Peter Cambell-Burns2 1 Pijnboomstraat 25, 2800 Mechelen, Belgium [email protected] 2 UKMON, Cavendish Gardens, Fleet, Hampshire, United Kingdom [email protected] A case study on the Zeta Cassiopeiids proves that this shower qualifies all criteria to be recognized as an established shower. Yearly activity has been detected with an indication for some long-term periodicity. The time of maximum activity could be established at solar longitude 112.75° with a secondary maximum at solar longitude 114.5°. All shower characteristics are identical to the nearby Perseid shower although ζ-Cassiopeiids are likely older. Both showers may be related to a common origin. 1 Introduction and Hawkins discrimination criteria DSH < 0.15 and allowed the computation of an accurate reference orbit, The global CAMS network results of 15 July 2018 radiant drift as well as other shower characteristics. displayed a remarkable concentration of radiants identified as Zeta Cassiopeiids (ZCS-444). The position and velocity At about the same time when the CMN-team revealed the can be easily mistaken for early Perseids, but real early presence of the ζ-Cassiopeiids from its orbit catalogue, the Perseids have a slightly higher velocity and radiants south Polish Comets and Meteors Workshop published a paper of these Zeta Cassiopeiids (ZCS-444), see Figure 1. with their data on this new shower (Żołądek and Wiśniewski, 2012). On July 14–15, 2005 Polish visual The remarkable large number of these Zeta Cassiopeiid observers had noticed a large number of bight meteors radiants inspired the authors to make a case study on this radiating from a position slightly west of the expected early shower which is still not listed as an established meteor Perseid radiant, close to the star ζ-Cassiopeiae. A shower in the IAU working list of meteor showers. remarkably high number of meteors were captured on the Polish video cameras, including a spectacular fireball, with about half of all these meteors coming from a common radiant. 20 members of a potential new shower were found in the records of three PFN stations. Almost all meteors were captured after 23h UT, some of them in the morning twilight. The Polish observers concluded in 2005 they observed an outburst of this new unknown radiant. Unfortunately, due to unfavorable geometrics no accurate orbit could be derived for the new shower. The ZCS#444 shower was also confirmed by the shower search on the CAMS orbits obtained in 2011 and 2012 (Jenniskens et al., 2016). Strange enough, it is still waiting to be recognized as an established meteor shower despite the weight of evidence for the existence of this shower. The photographic meteor orbit catalogue with 4873 accurate photographic orbits obtained between 1936 and Figure 1 – Screenshot of the CAMS radiant plot for the night of 2008 resulted in only eight possible ζ-Cassiopeiids orbits, 2018 July 15 with the Zeta Cassiopeiids (ZCS-444) as well as a in 1953, 1956, two in 1958, 1959, 1965, 1969 and 1979. few ‘real’ early Perseid radiants. Four of these orbits match the ζ-Cassiopeiids parent orbit within a high threshold D-Criterion. The Harvard radar 2 ZCS (444) history orbit catalogues 1961–1965 and 1968–1969 (Hawkins, This shower was discovered in 2012 by the Croatian Meteor 1963) contain only one orbit with a high threshold of Network from a radiant analysis on the 853 orbits collected DD < 0.04. The rather small number of ζ-Cassiopeiid orbits in 2007 which failed association with any known meteor collected before the large-scale video meteor observing stream (Šegon et al., 2012). The discovery followed a networks got started explains why this shower wasn’t detailed analysis of the 2007 CMN orbit data and CMN data noticed earlier. of the following years as well as on the available SonotaCo orbit data. As many as 55 orbits fulfilled the Southworth © eMeteorNews 225 2018 – 5 eMeteorNews 3 The available orbit data likes fail to fulfill even the weakest D-criteria. The nearby early Perseid radiant may explain to some extent the We have the following data, status as until July 2018, important sporadic or rather other shower contamination of available for our search: the selection. This explains why this shower remained ‘invisible’ for visual observers until the small outburst in • EDMOND EU+world with 317830 orbits (until 2016). 2005 caught the attention of the Polish team. It is a pity that EDMOND collects data from different European no performant camera networks were active at the time of networks which altogether operate 311 cameras the reported outburst (2005). (Kornos et al., 2014). • SonotaCo with 257010 orbits (2007–2017). SonotaCo Table 1 – The median values for each sub-set of orbits that fulfill is an amateur video network with over 100 cameras in DD<0.105, CAMS, SonotaCo and EDMOND, all combined orbits Japan (SonotaCo, 2009). and the final