(meteorobs) Observation August 10/11 2004

Fri Aug 13 18:15:39 EDT 2004

Greetings!

Here's my full report and data for the Tuesday night August 10/11...

As soon as I finished work and realized that there would be a small 
opening between the clouds at Foymount (to the West of Ottawa, ON), I 
scrambled to assemble my meteor observing gear and camera equipment.  I 
had an LXD EQ mount and the camera platform to do guided 
astrophotography.  Outside, it was still pooring rain!  As soon as 
possible I took off.

By the time I arrived at Foymount, it was already dark.  No one else 
was there.  It was *very* foggy and damp.  There had been some heavy 
rainfall there earlier so everything was wet.  Occasional flashes of 
distant lightning could be seen.  I went up to the antennas site and 
started to assemble my stuff.  Overhead, the skies looked like they 
were clearing but very murky with heavy fog banks that kep moving in 
and out.  The lightning flashes were really bright at times.

As much as the antenna site is flat and convenient, it's not a good 
idea for wide field astrophotography and meteors.  I had problems 
finding a suitable sky area to point the cameras without seeing guy 
wires or antenna.  Finally, I decided to move to a different site along 
a small dirt road to get a bit further to the side of the antennas.  
This was a bit better.  While I was taking lots of time setting up and 
doing polar alignment, I saw perhaps close to a dozen casual meteors 
with just quick glances overhead.  Once setup, I simply continued to 
wait and watch casually as fog banks rolled in and out.  Perseids 
meteors were seen every few minutes.  The skies through the holes were 
very nice and pristine, about mag 6.8.  Lots of nice faint structure in 
the Milky Way directly overhead.

At nearly 1am EDT, I finally signed on for meteors when the skies had 
improved enough, and I also started the astrophotos.  I had two SLR 
cameras with 50mm lens, ISO 800 film, both mounted on a platform on top 
of the LXD equatorial mount.  One camera was kept on Ursa Minor and 
another on Andromeda.  I did 8-10 minutes exposures for the rest of the 
night

Over the course of the 3 hours (effective obvserving time) that 
followed I recorded 108 meteors.  This included 79 Perseids, 3 Kappa 
Cygnids, 3 North Delta Aquarids, 2 antihelions, 1 South Delta Aquarid 
and 20 sporadics.  The Perseids activity was pretty much as I expected 
given the conditions.  Sporadics were on the low side.

The most memorable sights...

- A beautiful 20deg long mag -3 Perseid fireball at 2:19 EDT that had a 
terminal flash and 6 sec train.

- At 3:01 EDT, a foreshortened mag -3 Perseid fireball near the 
radiant. It had a bright flash and a 2 sec train.

- At 3:34 EDT, a very vivid **BLUE** slow-moving Kappa Cygnid of mag 
+2.  It was a very pretty meteor!!

- At the very end, just as I was ready to leave the site, at 5:23 EDT, 
the sky was glowing bright with the sun just about to rise.  I took one 
last glance up to see the nice crescent Moon and Venus and with a huge 
stroke of luck, I spotted a fabulous fireball into a thin bank of 
clouds!  I estimated it at mag -5 of average speed.  It seemed to be an 
Aquarid.  It was vivid blue, fragmenting and it exploded into a 
terminal flash!!  All this went by in just a fraction of a second... 
WOW!!!

Meteor details below...

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario

DATE: August 10/11 2004
BEGIN: 0450 UT (0050 EDT)  END: 0845 UT (0445 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -77.304 West; Lat: 45.431 North  Elevation: 1800 ft
City & Province: Foymount, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		KCG (Kappa Cygnids)____________________________18:56 (284) +58
		CAP (Alpha Capricornids)_______________________21:04 (316) -06
		ANT (antihelions)______________________________22:00 (330) -11
		SIA (South Iota Aquarids)______________________22:28 (337) -14
		NDA (North Delta Aquarids)_____________________22:16 (334) -05
		SDA (South Delta Aquarids)_____________________23:12 (348) -13
		PER (Perseids)_________________________________02:44 (041) +58
		NPX (sporadics from north apex)________________03:00 (045) +31
		SPX (sporadics from south apex)________________03:00 (045) +01
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM____PER_KCG_CAP_ANT_SIA_NDA_SDA_NPX_SPX_SPO

0450-0625__2310+17__1.00__6.64__22___1___0___0___0___0___1___1___0___2
0625-0738__0200+33__1.00__6.48__34___2___0___1___0___3___0___3___1___6
0738-0845__0240+27__0.93__6.16__23___0___0___1___0___0___0___3___0___4

TOTALS:_____________2.93________79___3___0___2___0___3___1___7___1__12 
= 108

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
______-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5__+6______AVE

PER____2___1___2___3___8__15__13__21__13___1_____+2.81
KCG____0___0___0___0___0___2___0___0___1___0_____+3.00
NDA____0___0___0___0___0___0___1___1___1___0_____+4.00
ANT____0___0___0___0___0___0___2___0___0___0_____+3.00
SDA____0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0_____+4.00
SPO____0___0___0___0___1___3___5___7___4___0_____+3.50

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

------------------------

Dead time: 60.99 min. for breaks

Breaks (UT): 5:00-02, 5:07-36, 5:39-42, 5:55(30sec), 6:15(20sec),
6:21(30sec), 6:26(20sec), 6:42-48, 6:57(30sec), 7:10-11, 7:12-13, 
7:26-30, 7:40(20sec), 7:49(15sec), 8:00(15sec), 8:08-19, 8:27(30sec), 
8:34(30sec)
-------------------------