(meteorobs) Observation October 22/23 2004
Pierre Martin
dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Mon Oct 25 22:51:29 EDT 2004
I was determined to make up for the disappointment of the previous
night by trying again...
On the Friday afternoon, the unpredictable low clouds had dissipated
away, and made way for clear blue skies! The weather was now looking
far more promising for a good observing night! Indeed, it was a night
that wouldn't disappoint, and that I won't soon forget!! I arrived at
Bootland just before midnight. While the Moon was still up, I took my
time to setup the coffin and got everything ready for an all-nighter.
The night was quite cool, reaching the freezing mark and *very* humid!
Unlike the last night, it was humid enough for a very thick layer of
icy white frost to quickly cover everything in sight. It was necessary
to bundle up well. The skies were absolutely magnificent, and among
the most transparent that I've ever seen at this site. The limiting
magnitude reached over 6.6 with a highly structured Milky Way, the
Gegenshein and M33 was visible as a border line naked eye object.
Orion itself seemed buried in a sea of faint stars. It was a stunning
sight.
In the four hours effective time that followed, I recorded 171 meteors
(including 87 Orionids, 9 Leo Minorids, 8 South Taurids, 6 North
Taurids, 4 Epsilon Geminids and 57 sporadics). These numbers
definitely make it my second busiest meteor night of the year. It
certainly was easy to remain alert for a few hours with so much
activity going on.
The Orionids varied wildly from one hour to the next. Their rates were
either about normal or quite a bit *better* than expected! They
started with 15 seen in the first hour. Then they surged to a whopping
28 members recorded the second hour, only to return to a more normal
rate of 18 meteors in the third hour, to finally go back up to 26
members for the final hour. Orionids produced an abundance of faint
meteors and only one of them reached mag -1. I can certainly attest
that many Orionids left wakes and trains despite their dimness.
Interestingly enough, the sporadics followed a similar pattern of
inconsistent rates one hour to the next. However, the Taurids and Leo
Minorids put on quite a steady trickle of activity every hour.
The highlights of this fine night were numerous...
- Around midnight, a casual sporadic fireball of -3 with a deep
**GOLDEN** color went by a persistent and leisurely path in the north.
- At 2:04 EDT, a VERY SLOW mag -3 sporadic fireball was seen low in the
south. It was so slow that I initially mistaken it for a satellite.
It was almost pure YELLOW, and although I missed part of its path,
Mitch O'Brien said he saw it fragment in pieces.
- At 2:24 EDT, a faint mag +4 sporadic of average speed that seemed to
fragment and disintegrate into a nebulous appearance. An odd effect!
- At 2:26 EDT, a VIVID **BLUE** slow moving North Taurid.
- At 2:47 EDT, an Orionid and a sporadic that very nearly crossed paths
with each other!! This was one of the neatest things that I've seen in
a while.
- At 3:24 EDT, two fairly bright mag +1 Orionids went by just 2 sec
apart!
- At 3:54 EDT, a nice BLUE-GREEN mag -1 Orionid!
- At 4:01 EDT, a most stunning mag -4 *BLUE* North Taurid fireball went
by in the east, tracing a 20 degrees path and leaving behind 3 seconds
train!
- At 4:25 EDT, a vivid *SAPHIRE BLUE* mag 0 Orionid with 2 sec train!
- At 4:57 EDT, a near point south Taurid!!! The mag -1 meteor barely
showed any motion to it and appeared almost pure white!! Wow!!!
- At 5:05 EDT, a vivid *GREEN* Orionid with 1 sec train!
- At 5:46 EDT, two nearly simultaneous Orionids!
I ended the session near 6am EDT, grabed a snooze for a couple hours
and then took off. What a great night this was, and one I won't soon
forget!!!
Clear skies!
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: October 22/23 2004
BEGIN: 0535 UT (0135 EDT) END: 0955 UT (0555 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, cord align
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
ORI (Orionids)_________________________________06:28 +16
ANT (antihelions, North and South Taurids)_____03:04 +17
EGE (Epsilon Geminids)_________________________07:12 +27
LMI (Leo Minorids)_____________________________10:48 +37
NPX (sporadics from north apex)________________08:04 +35
SPX (sporadics from south apex)________________08:04 +05
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____ORI_EGE_NTA_STA_LMI_NPX_SPX_SPO
0535-0645__0412+17__1.00__6.43___15___0___2___1___1___1___2___14
0645-0757__0455+11__1.00__6.55___28___0___1___3___2___1___3___4
0757-0858__0559+12__0.89__6.60___18___3___3___3___3___3___4___11
0858-0955__0602+09__0.95__6.63___26___1___0___1___3___5___3___6
TOTALS:_____________3.84_________87___4___6___8___9__10__12___35 = 171
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
_______-4__-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5__+6______AVE
SPO_____0___1___0___0___2___2___6__15__22___8___1_____+3.33
ORI_____0___0___0___1___6__10__11__16__20__15___8_____+3.24
EGE_____0___0___0___0___0___0___2___1___1___0___0_____+2.75
NTA_____1___0___0___1___0___0___0___0___3___1___0_____+2.00
STA_____0___0___0___1___0___0___1___1___4___1___0_____+3.13
LMI_____0___0___0___0___0___0___2___0___5___2___0_____+3.78
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: 30.5 min (for breaks)
Breaks (UT): 5:44-53, 5:56 (20sec), 6:09 (45sec), 6:48-7:00, 7:06
(20sec), 8:03-10, 8:16 (20sec), 8:23 (30sec), 9:08 (20sec)
-------------------------
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