(meteorobs) Observation May 16/17 2004

[Pierre Martin]

Here's my meteor report for a short Sunday evening session at the 
Cobden (Zion Hill) site located out west of Ottawa.

The sky was clear with good transparency.  It was quite comfortable to 
be out and I managed to miss most of the mosquitoes by arriving well 
after sunset.  I was only able to do a one hours teff, but it was worth 
it.  The activity was fairly active during the first half hour, then it 
declined a bit later on.  The best meteor was the near-earthgrazing mag 
+2 Sagittarid at 2:32 UT that had a really vivid ORANGE hue, a thin 
wake, and it travelled leisurely on a 20 deg long path into Bootes.

I also had my little 80mm Megrez refractor and enjoyed my best views so 
far of Comet NEAT C/2001 Q4.  At very low power (14X), it displayed 
both the dust and ion tails very nicely.  Bright nucleus and huge coma. 
  Artifical satellites were seen cruising near the comet every now and 
then.  To the unaided eye, it was a distinct fuzzy object - about 
similar to M44.

Clear skies!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: May 16/17 2004
BEGIN: 0230 UT (2230 EDT)  END: 0341 UT (2341 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76.88 West; Lat: 45.63 North  Elevation: 50m
City & Province: Cobden, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		ANT (Antihelions or Sagittarids)_______________16:36 (249) -22
		CAU (Beta Corona Australids)___________________19:00 (285) -40
		ELY (IRAS-Araki-Alcockids)_____________________19:40 (295) +44
		SPO (random sporadics)
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OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen;  / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)__FIELD___Teff__F_____LM_____ANT_CAU_ELY_SPO

0230-0341__1441+13__1.16__1.00__6.44____4___0___0___5

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 fourth column (F) is a value for obstructions in the field of 
view such as clouds (1.00 = 100% clear skies). 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__+3__+4__+5_____AVE

SPO___1___3___0___1____+3.20
ANT___2___1___0___1____+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
------------------------

Dead time: 1.66 min. (for plotting)

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