(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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