On 15 November 2023, a Japanese amateur astronomer recorded another fireball in Jupiter’s atmosphere. These seem to be happening on a fairly regular basis. All who are able to monitor Jupiter for fireballs are strongly encouraged to do so. Currently, Jupiter is up most of the night, already high enough to observe at dusk, and sets around 3 am local time. One of the goals in the New Year, perhaps by the time the next apparition of Jupiter begins later in 2024, is to set up a Jupiter meteor patrol to monitor Jupiter at all times for more such events. More details on this program are forthcoming.

Lunar Geminid Candidates - 15 December 2023

I received a report about four Geminid meteor candidates, listed below. The observer’s name is Lawrence Garrett, who observed from Vermont. Due to technical and logistical considerations, he was unable to observe with his video setup, so all the observations were visual. Unfortunately he did not provide a date, but based on the lunar phase and UT of the observations, it was almost certainly on 15 December 2023.  The Moon was rather low and clouds interfered off-and-on. He watched the Moon from 21:27:00 UT to 22:20:00 UT, before the clouds increased enough to end his session. The observations were made with an 8-inch Celestron telescope, keeping time with a handheld “dual timer” set to radio clock. The details of his report as submitted follows:

Candidate 1 21h:47m28s Strong time recorded—– Gray and wider then suspected cosmic rays—-see detail below

Candidate 2 21h53m12s Strong time recorded—– Gray and wider then suspected cosmic rays—-see detail below

Candidate 3 21h57m00s Time many be 2 seconds in error —-Gray and wider then suspected cosmic rays—see detail below

Candidate 4 22h05m54s Time many be 2 seconds in error—- Limb Candidate brighter than the above with white appearance

The more detailed descriptions follow:

The start of observations at 21h27:00 UT held earthshine very weak, without defined limb at 72x, 6″ f/8 reflector.

But between 21h27:00 and 21h47m, at least 9 very small flashes were seen in the dark limb, one suspected on the bright lunar disk, and one right on the terminator. I dismiss these as cosmic rays. Indeed, later in the night I seemed to spot a cosmic ray as a line moving right off the dark lunar disk. They seemed far too many to be impacts. They were very pinpoint, white and brief.

Candidates 1-3 were mid disk, larger than pinpoint and gray.

Candidate 4 was one of at least 6 limb suspects, but as only this one seen without side vision, plotted. These western limb Candidates seemed to have two flashes before lunar limb was visible, and appeared the most like confirmed events are. Of these, three were near the “4″ position area, and two or 3 at the “2 O’clock” position.

While I did record periods without flashes, with so many near limit vison events, brighter lunar features near the edge of visibility, I cannot really report these as “no event visible times. As the moon grew brighter, clouds and brightness ended the observing.

This sketch, with the bright lunar crescent presented in dark gray, shows the location of each of the impact candidates relative to the crescent. Confirming video observations are sought.

Lunar Perseid Candidate 13 August 2023

I have received a report from an experience German visual observer, Peter Slansky, who reported a apparent bright impact point flash that he viewed naked-eye on the dark side of the rising crescent Moon during the Perseid meteor shower on 13 August. Based on the location of the flash in his sketch, this was out of the zone that Perseid meteors were impacting and was likely a large sporadic, if it is an actual meteor. The observation was made “from the Tiefenbach glacier near Sölden, Tyrol/Austria, 2940 m altitude. (Observing location was 46.9173° N; 10.9348° E). I have sent the following report to the groups.io list and am providing it below as well.

“Bright flash on the dark side of the Moon on 13 August 2023 at 00:50 UT”

“Shortly after the moon had fully risen, I saw a pinpoint flash on the dark side for a fraction of a second. XXX (his observing partner who apparently wishes to remain anonymous) witnessed my spontaneous exclamation, but he didn’t see it. I ran to my radio clock and noted 02:50:05 CEST as the time of the event (00:50:05 UT; 13.8.2023), with an accuracy of plus minus 3 seconds. I made a sketch of the position immediately after the observation. I have attached the sketch that he made. if the moon was only 2°34’ above the horizon it is likely that few if anyone, in Europe was watching.”

If anyone has been watching the Moon for Lunar Perseids or otherwise and witnessed a flash, please let us know.

Philippe Lognonné (based in France) is assembling collaborators for a NASA proposal he is putting together that features an Artemis-3 International Flash network. This would consist of a global, coordinated network of observers to monitor the southern regions of the Moon systematically and (near) continuously (as much as possible) for impact flashes to support the Artemis-3 mission. This collaboration is looking for observer in America. I have replied to express interest but need to locate a dedicated observer (or several) to participate in this. So if those of you stateside are interested in participating with regular observations please let me know as soon as you can.

We concluded, earlier in the fall, a campaign to video the night side of Venus in search of fireballs. The techniques and technology are like observing lunar meteors, except instead of using a focal reducer to widen the field, use a 2x or 3x barlow lens (as seeing allows) to enlarge the image of Venus (which narrows the field) at moderate to high magnification.

I came across an article in the March 2023 issue of Sky and Telescope (pp. 52-53). The article is titled “Hunting for Venusian Fireballs” by Tom Dobbins. The Venusian fireball hunt ran from June 16 to July 7, when the planet is favorably placed and physically close to the Earth to maximize the chances of observing fireballs. A similar three-week period occurred August 28 to September 18, when the planet was in a similar crescent phase but in the predawn hours.

As of this writing I have received no reports of any Venus meteor candidates. If you have any reports, please e-mail them to me at bmcudnik@pvamu.edu