Another Gem Of A Night!

Much to my suprise last night the forecast was not entirely accurate so i was delighted to get crystal clear skies from 21.23 - 03.00 local time. I observed and imaged the sky for hours on end and it was tough at times due to the bone chilling cold breeze from the north but the sky was amazing with a giant clear arc of sky spanning from the W to NE. The moon was behind my back and blocked by clouds making the sky seem even darker which aided me alot.

After a quiet start the activity really picked up with a steadily increasing frequency of meteors as time went by. There magnitudes also seemed to get brighter to. At one stage i seen 3 meteors in quick succession and observed one orange tailless fireball drop into the low NE within Bootes! I captured approx 10 meteors on images but i made the mistake of accidently deleting them in my haste to clean up my memeory card however all was not lost, i did capture a faint Geminid in a near vertical positon streak through Cygnus just west of Deneb low in the N.....



Uncropped version....



And heres a shot of Orion with an aeroplane contrail...



Clouds moved in after 3am and ended the session. Overall i observed 114 meteors but had the sky stayed clear i am sure i would have got a very large count indeed. The Geminids have been great this year, just a pity there was a near full moon in the sky!

Clear skies