(meteorobs) Observation August 2/3 2005

Sat Aug 13 18:41:45 EDT 2005

On Wednesday morning August 3, I returned to Bootland Farm.  While setting up, I casually spotted a nice mag -2 Perseid with train, coming out of the radiant.  This was a very humid night, with unstable weather.  Out in the north, a distant thunderstorm loomed and produce constant flashes of lightning that illuminated most of the sky.  Thankfully, the storm was moving away from where I was.  This ended up being another short one hour session, as clouds moved in after and put an end to the watch.

In the hour between 1:30-2:35am, I recorded 16 meteors under a poor to average quality sky transparency.  The limiting magnitude was about 6.3.

The brightest meteor was a blue mag 0 anthelion.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario

DATE: August 2/3 2005
BEGIN: 0530 UT (0130 EDT)  END: 0635 UT (0235 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 45 23' North  Elevation: 200 ft
City & Province: Bootland Farm (near Arnprior) Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting & cord align
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OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		CAP (Alpha Capricornids)_________________________20:36 -10
		ANT (anthelions)_________________________________21:28 -14		
		NDA (N. Delta Aquarids)__________________________21:52 -08
		SIA (S. Iota Aquarids)___________________________21:54 -16
		SDA (S. Delta Aquarids)__________________________22:24 -16
		PAU (Pisces Austrinids)__________________________22:56 -29
		PER (Perseids)___________________________________02:04 +55
		SPO (random sporadics)
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OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen;  / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____SPO_PER_CAP_SIA/ANT_NDA_SDA_PAU

0530-0635__2221+08__1.08__6.35____5___4___3_____2_____0___2___0  =  16

*Note: SIA/ANT activity combined together

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.
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MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

SHOWER
_______0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5_____AVE

SPO____0___0___2___1___2___0_____+3.00
PER____0___1___0___1___0___2_____+3.50
CAP____0___0___1___0___2___0_____+3.33
ANT____1___0___0___0___1___0_____+2.00
SDA____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.

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SKY OBSCURED (FOV): None

F = 1.00

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Dead time: none

Breaks (UT): none

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