(meteorobs) Observation October 19/20 2004

Pierre Martin dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Wed Oct 20 23:29:57 EDT 2004


This Wednesday morning (October 19/20) I enjoyed a productive meteor 
session under dark skies at the Bootland Farm site (west of Ottawa).  
The skies were crystal clear with a decent transparency.  The zodiacal 
light was of equal brightness and intensity to the Winter Milky Way.  
The temperature was to the freezing point so I was glad to have my big 
sleeping bag to stay warm.  At one point, I spilled some coffee on my 
table and it froze within mere minutes.  In the 3 hours effective time, 
I recorded as many as 78 meteors.  The Orionids were the most active 
source with 35 seen.  The remaining activity consisted of 3 Epsilon 
Geminids, 4 North Taurids, 2 South Taurids, 1 Delta Aurigid and 33 
sporadics.  I also noticed 6 meteors that seemed to radiate from the 
north (an area somewhere around Ursa Major and Ursa Minor).  I have 
seen these meteors a couple years ago on this date.  Has anyone else 
noticed any swift moving meteors coming out of the north?

Overall meteor rates were quite good, with meteors appearing every 2 
minutes on average.  Orionids seemed normal with 11 seen the first 
hour, 16 in the second hour and 8 during the final 30 minutes of my 
watch.  There's lots of very faint Orionids, but the brighter ones were 
typically trained and quite colorful!  The blue and yellows were the 
most typical colors seen.

The highlights include a 20 degrees long mag -2 blue sporadic that 
bursted, seen just 4 minutes into the session!  Later on at 4:39am EDT, 
an intense blue mag -3 Epsilon Geminid fireball shot a long 20 degrees 
path, with two second train.  Finally, at 6:04am EDT, a highly 
foreshortened mag +2 Orionid appeared next to the radiant!  Was only 2 
degrees long and left behind a stubby 1 second train.

While waiting for meteors, I saw a few interesting satellites.  At 
4:18am EDT, an Iridium Flare of mag -5 or -6 near the zenith.  A bit 
later at 4:31am EDT, a nearly stationary satellite was seen flashing in 
Taurus, in the vicinity of the Crab nebula (M1).  The flashes were 
consistently mag +4 and occured once every 25 sec.  Perhaps this was a 
geo-stationary satellite?

Clear skies!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: October 19/20 2004
BEGIN: 0745 UT (0345 EDT)  END: 1035 UT (0635 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 45 23' North  Elevation: 400 ft
City & Province: Bootland Farm, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		ORI (Orionids)_________________________________06:08 +15
		ANT (antihelions, North and South Taurids)_____02:36 +15
		EGE (Epsilon Geminids)_________________________06:44 +27
		DAU (Delta Aurigids)___________________________05:40 +52
		NPX (sporadics from north apex)________________07:36 +36
		SPX (sporadics from south apex)________________07:36 +06
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM____ORI_EGE_NTA_STA_DAU_NPX_SPX_SPO

0745-0848__0602+09__1.00__6.45__11___1___0___0___0___5___1___9
0848-0954__0620+14__1.01__6.48__16___2___4___2___0___0___3___9
0954-1035__0718+16__0.68__6.03___8___0___0___0___1___2___1___3

TOTALS:_____________2.69________35___3___4___2___1___7___5___21 = 78

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______AVE

SPO_____0___1___0___0___1___4__11___9___7_____+3.36
ORI_____0___0___0___0___4__12___7___6___6_____+2.94
EGE_____1___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___1_____+1.33
NTA_____0___0___0___0___0___1___2___0___1_____+3.25
STA_____0___0___0___0___0___0___1___1___0_____+3.50
DAU_____0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0_____+4.00

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: 8.5 min (for breaks)

Breaks (UT): 0754 (1.5min), 0757 (1.5min), 0853 (30sec), 0930-0935

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




More information about the Meteorobs mailing list