January 2008 Observations

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Jan 4, 2008 - What happened to the Quadrantids?     The Quadrantid meteor shower seemingly did not materialize over central Maryland, despite very clear skies. Out of 4,000+ 8.5 second images from a 100 degree wide field StellaCam II setup, I only picked up two meteors.

853 second sprinkler image

853 second image

Comet Tuttle is displaying a lawn-sprinkler shape as our vantage point is just right to see it face on, much like a spiral galaxy. It is difficult to see in normal images. The image on the right was derived by taking the difference of two images that were taken a couple of hours apart.

Image showing comet Tuttle's Rotation
Jan 1, 2008 Image showing Tuttle's rotation

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