(meteorobs) Observation August 19/20 2004

[Pierre Martin]

For the evening of August 19, I returned to the Stetsons Flyers field 
(just east of Ottawa).  This night was unusually very transparent.  
Despite this location's proximity near the big city, the sky was 
surprisingly good!  The Milky Way displayed quite a lot of structure 
down to the south.  It was a beautiful night to be out.

Despite the very good skies, there was a few long lulls during the 
first hour when no activity would be seen for several minutes.  The 
second hour picked up a little more.  The Kappa Cygnids were obviously 
not as active as a few nights ago.  A few late Perseids went by.

The best meteor was a *VERY SLOW* mag +2 sporadic at 22h33 EDT that 
lasted a good 3-4 seconds!

Also had a nice pass by the NOSS satellite triplet.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: August 19/20 2004
BEGIN: 0200 UT (2200 EDT)  END: 0410 UT (0010 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
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OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		KCG (Kappa Cygnids)____________________________19:04 +59
		NIA (North Iota Aquarids)______________________21:56 -06
		ANT (antihelions)______________________________22:52 -06
		NDA (North Delta Aquarids)_____________________23:00 -03
		ERI (Eridanids)________________________________03:08 -13
		PER (Perseids)_________________________________04:00 +59
		NPX (sporadics from north apex)________________03:52 +35
		SPX (sporadics from south apex)________________03:52 +05
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM____KCG_NIA_ANT_NDA_ERI_PER_NPX_SPX_SPO

0200-0300__2230+43__1.00__6.19___0___0___0___0___/___1___0___/___5
0300-0410__2337+46__1.13__6.28___1___1___0___0___/___2___1___/___6

TOTALS:_____________2.13_________1___1___0___0___/___3___1___/___11 = 17

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__+3__+4__+5______AVE

SPO____2___4___4___2_____+3.50
KCG____1___0___0___0_____+2.00
NIA____0___1___0___0_____+3.00
PER____0___0___3___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: 2.50 min. for total (1.25 min plots)

Breaks (UT): 3:59 (45sec), 4:02 (30sec)
-------------------------