(meteorobs) Observation July 9/10 2005

[dob14.5 at sympatico.ca]

Hi all,

I'm finally catching up on old reports...

On Saturday July 9, I joined Todd Weeks and Greg Baggs for a trip up to La Verendrye Forest Reserve.  We arrived at the airstrip around sunset and setup.  It was a comfortable evening, but the mosquitoes were out for most of the night since the temperature never really dropped by much.  The sky was quite good, but not nearly as transparent as we would have hoped for.  There were several thin clouds in the evening that gradually dissipated.

I spent 2.5 hours of meteor observing.  For this session, I faced the south-east.  Activity was quite average with a total of 24 meteors.  The July Pegasids produced only two meteors.  Lots of dim meteors on this night and nothing brighter than mag +1.

We also enjoyed a very nice but brief aurora display in the north.

We packed up in the morning dawn and took off. Todd and I spent a good part of the morning driving around and taking photographs in the nature.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: July 9/10 2005
BEGIN: 0300 UT (2300 EDT)  END: 0624 UT (0224 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 46 59' North  Elevation: 400m
City & Province: RŽserve Faunique La VŽrendrye, QuŽbec, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting & cord align
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		SAG (Sagittarids - ANT)__________________________20:08 -19
		CAP (Alpha Capricornids)_________________________19:16 -15
		JPG (July Pegasids)______________________________22:40 +15
		SDA (S. Delta Aquarids)__________________________21:40 -19
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____SPO_CAP_SAG_JPG_SDA

0300-0403__1836+09__1.03__6.46____7___0___1___0___0
0420-0548__1946+10__1.00__6.59____4___0___2___2___1
0548-0624__2144+09__0.48__6.63____7___0___0___0___0

TOTALS:_____________2.51_________18___0___3___2___1  = 24


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
______+1__+2__+3__+4__+5_____AVE

SPO____3___3___5___6___1_____+2.94
SAG____0___0___3___0___0_____+3.00
JPG____0___0___1___1___0_____+3.50
SDA____0___0___1___0___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.


SKY OBSCURED (FOV): None

F = 1.00
-------------------------

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

Dead time: 33 min breaks + 3.33 min plots = 36.33 min total

Breaks (UT): 4:03-20, 4:36-55, 5:36-43, 6:02-09