Geminids 2001

Originally, the so-called ‘preliminary reports’ were meant as an
immediate information about the observed activity level of major
meteor showers based on a limited number of raw data sent to the
IMO directly after the observations. This scheme worked well
until the number of observers sending their (full) reports
promptly increased so that we now reached a point where we
receive an (almost) complete global data set within a few days
after a major shower maximum. Of course, it is great to see that
observers distribute their full data so quickly. This situation,
however, implies that the people doing the input work for the
IMO data bases will type the data only once. That is, we now
have quite a large number of Geminid reports already in the VMDB
(while still many Leonid and Geminid reports are coming in). As
a further consequence, the present Geminid report is based on a
large quantity of data obtained by 44 observers worldwide and it
(almost) looks like a global analysis rather than a very
preliminary report. This is also the reason for the delay…

Anyway, we very much appreciate the reports sent by the
following 44 observers including 146.3h net observing time and a
total of 5919 Geminids noted during the 2001 return of the
shower.

Of course, we will include all further data becoming available
later in the global analysis of the Geminids 2001 and publish a
respective paper in WGN. The 2001 return was well observed and
the data is particularly useful because the night was free of
disturbing moonlight. The Geminids showed a broad maximum with a
plateau with ZHRs of the order of 120. The last column gives the
time (UT) for a number of solar longitudes.

  
  ----------------------------------  
  Solarlong ZHR +/- Time (UT)  
  ----------------------------------  
  260.311  28 1.5 0720 Dec 12  
  260.395  31 1.7  
  260.505  33 2.0 1200  
  260.743  47 2.9  
  260.889  56 3.5  
  261.050  64 4.3 0050 Dec 13  
  261.145  69 4.3  
  261.217  73 4.9  
  261.439  78 4.6 1000  
  261.688  89 4.8  
  261.877 107 4.5  
  261.921 111 3.7 2120  
  261.972 110 2.4  
  261.996 118 2.3 2310  
  262.014 120 2.1 2345  
  262.036 118 1.9 0005 Dec 14  
  262.052 117 1.9 0025  
  262.066 116 1.8 0045  
  262.076 116 1.7 0100  
  262.084 116 1.7 0110  
  262.096 116 1.7 0130  
  262.109 116 1.8 0150  
  262.126 117 1.9 0210  
  262.148 118 2.1 0245  
  262.170 120 2.3 0315  
  262.195 114 2.5 0350  
  262.219 108 2.8 0425  
  262.250 108 3.4 0505  
  262.295 112 4.0 0610  
  262.349 112 4.6 0725  
  262.361 113 4.8 0745  
  262.374 117 5.7 0805  
  262.436  96 6.4 0930  
  262.742  44 2.4 1645  
  ----------------------------------

Many thanks to all the observers who contributed:
Hershil Adesara (India), Koen Miskotte (Netherlands),
Rainer Arlt (Germany), Sirko Molau (Germany),
Felix Bettonvil (Netherlands), Sven Näther (Germany),
Sushrut Bhanushali (India), Francisco Ocana Gonzalez (Spain),
Lukas Bolz (Germany), Eran Ofek (Israel),
Biswajit Bose (India), Daniel Van Os (Netherlands),
Parag B. Deotare (India), Jacques Plee (France),
Frank Enzlein (Germany), Nilesh Puntambekar (India),
Christoph Gerber (Germany), Tushar Purohit (India),
George W. Gliba (USA), Jürgen Rendtel (Germany),
Shelagh Godwin (UK), Francisco Rodriguez Ramirez (Spain),
Madhura Gokhale (India), Keren Sharon (Israel),
Lew Gramer (USA), Brian Shulist (Canada),
Takema Hashimoto (Japan), George Spalding (UK),
Kamil Hornoch (Czech Republic), Ulrich Sperberg (Germany),
Tomislav Jurkic (Croatia), Enrico Stomeo (Italy),
Marco Langbroek (Netherlands), David Swann (USA),
Robert Lunsford (USA), Richard Taibi (USA),
Hartwig Luthen (Germany), Josep Trigo Rodriguez (Spain),
Qiang Ma (China), Michel Vandeputte (Belgium),
Pierre Martin (Canada), Heinrich Wiechell (Germany),
Alastair Mcbeath (UK) and Nikolai Wünsche (Germany).