(meteorobs) Observation August 16/17 2004

[Pierre Martin]

Hi all!

I've been very busy lately moving to a new house, so I'm now finally 
catching up on old reports.  This one goes back to the evening of 
August 16 at the Stetsons Flyers field (located just east of Ottawa).  
The main objective of that night was to hunt for Kappa Cygnids in the 
early evening.

In 2 hours teff, I recorded 21 meteors.  The Kappa Cygnids were 
certainly active in low numbers and provided some spectacular, slow 
moving and persistent meteors!  The best was a mag -2 deep yellow Kappa 
Cygnid that left a beautiful wake along its path.

Another Kappa Cygnid of mag 0 had a very persistent path that lasted a 
few *long* seconds as it descended into Perseus.  The meteor was 
vividly yellow changing to orange and also had a wake.

The sporadics magnitude distribution is odd in that it's made up 
entirely of mag +3 and +4 meteors only..

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: August 16/17 2004
BEGIN: 0150 UT (2150 EDT)  END: 0425 UT (0025 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -75.063 West; Lat: 45.269 North  Elevation: 200 ft
City & Province: Boundary road, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		KCG (Kappa Cygnids)____________________________19:00 +59
		NIA (North Iota Aquarids)______________________21:28 -07
		ANT (antihelions)______________________________22:28 -08
		NDA (North Delta Aquarids)_____________________22:36 -04
		SIA (South Iota Aquarids)______________________23:00 -13
		SDA (South Delta Aquarids)_____________________23:28 -12
		PER (Perseids)_________________________________03:20 +59
		NPX (sporadics from north apex)________________03:28 +34
		SPX (sporadics from south apex)________________03:28 +04
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM____KCG_NIA_ANT_NDA_SIA_SDA_PER_NPX_SPX_SPO

0150-0255__2211+50__1.00__5.90___2___0___0___1___0___0___0___0___/___5
0255-0425__2313+57__1.49__6.08___2___0___0___0___0___0___2___1___/___8

TOTALS:_____________2.49_________4___0___0___1___0___0___2___1___/___13 
= 21

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

SPO____0___0___0___0___0___8___6___0_____+3.42
KCG____1___0___2___0___0___1___0___0_____+0.25
NDA____0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1_____+5.00
PER____0___0___0___0___1___0___1___0_____+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: 5.74 min. for total (3.16 min plots)

Breaks (UT): 1:57 (15sec), 2:01-03, 2:53 (20sec)
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