(meteorobs) Observation July 28/29 2004

[Pierre Martin]

Here's my report for the late-night of July 28/29 at Zion Hill site, 
located out west of Ottawa...  On the way there, at exactly 1:45am EDT, 
I caught sight of a spectacular mag -4 fireball travelling down the 
north-east.  It was medium-fast and had some obvious fragmentation!  
When I arrived at the site, it was challenging to navigate through the 
very tall grass in there.  It was also extremely humid and wet 
everywhere.  Despite the high humidity and thick, dense fog I was able 
to keep my field of view near the zenith and see down to +5 mag.  
Anywhere lower in the sky, there was barely any stars visible at all.  
To make matters worse, there was a light from the Zion Camp that was 
left on and reflected into the fog.  Ken Whitnall arrived just a few 
minutes later and we both just sit back to watch for meteors.

In almost 2 hours teff, I recorded a surprising 19 meteors despite the 
very poor skies.  I can just imagine how many more would have been 
visible had the skies been better.

The highlight was a nice long mag -1 South Delta Aquarid near the 
zenith that was bluish in color at 3:20am EDT (it's alignment also 
coincides with the PAU).  Also, at 3:38am EDT, a mag -2 sporadic shot 
low into the south, and had quite a strong halo all around it due to 
the thickness of the fog!  Quite an interesting effect!!

We also watched many artificial satellites, including a multitude of 
flashing, tumbling objects.

Clear skies!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: July 28/29 2004
BEGIN: 0625 UT (0225 EDT)  END: 0815 UT (0415 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76.88 West; Lat: 45.63 North  Elevation: 400 ft
City & Province: Cobden, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		CAP (Alpha Capricornids)_______________________20:12 (303) -11
		ACG (Alpha Cygnids)____________________________20:36 (309) +48
		ANT (antihelions)______________________________21:08 (317) -15
		SIA (South Iota Aquarids)______________________21:28 (322) -17
		NDA (North Delta Aquarids)_____________________21:32 (323) -09
		SDA (South Delta Aquarids)_____________________22:28 (337) -17
		PAU (Piscis Austrinids)________________________22:32 (338) -31
		PER (Perseids)_________________________________01:32 (023) +54
		NPX (sporadics from north apex)________________02:08 (032) +27
		SPX (sporadics from south apex)________________02:08 (032) -03
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen;  / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD___Teff_LM___ACG_NDA_SDA_CAP_ANT_SIA_PAU_PER_NPX_SPX_SPO

0625-0727__2239+37_1.00_5.12__1___1___2___0___0___0___0___1___1___0___6
0727-0815__2239+37_0.79_5.03__0___0___1___0___0___1___0___1___3___0___1

TOTALS:____________1.79_______1___1___3___0___0___1___0___2___4___0___7 
= 19

The first column (Period UT) refers to observing periods broken down as 
close as possible to one hour of true observing, in Universal Time. The 
second column (Field) is the area in in the sky where I centered my 
field of view. The third column (TEFF) represents effective observing 
time (corrected for breaks or any time I did not spent looking at the 
sky).  The next column (LM) is the average naked eye limiting 
magnitude, determined by triangle star counts. All following columns 
indicate the number of meteors for each shower observed.
------------------------

MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

SHOWER
______-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4______AVE

SPO____1___1___1___0___3___4___1_____+1.72
ACG____0___0___0___0___0___1___0_____+3.00
NDA____0___0___0___0___1___0___0_____+2.00
SDA____0___1___0___1___0___1___0_____+1.00
PER____0___0___0___1___0___1___0_____+2.00
SIA____0___0___0___0___0___1___0_____+3.00

Note: Magnitude scale is to determine the brightness of sky objects. 
Magnitude -8 is comparable to a quarter moon, magnitude -4 with the 
planet Venus, magnitude -1 with the brightest star Sirius, magnitude +2 
to +3 with most average naked eye stars and magnitude +6 to +7 are the 
faintest stars the naked eye can see under typical dark conditions. A 
meteor of at least magnitude -3 is considered a fireball.  The above 
table contains the magnitudes from all observed meteors, and the 
average (last column) for showers.
------------------------

SKY OBSCURED (FOV): None (F = 1.00), very heavy fog restricting field 
of view to zenith-only
------------------------

Dead time: 2.52 min. for plots

Breaks (UT): None
-------------------------