(meteorobs) Observation December 7/8 2005

Pierre Martin dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Sat Dec 10 18:44:28 EST 2005


Hello all,

This Thursday morning, I went out for a couple hours of meteor  
observing to the Boundary road site, just east of Ottawa.  The skies  
were clear but quite cold at -15C (5F).

I had quite a productive session.  The first hour was fairly slow  
with only a trickle of sporadics and other minor showers.  However,  
the second hour suddenly exploded in sporadics and was full of  
activity!  Among them, I noticed five fairly fast and faint meteors  
that seemed to come out of a diffuse radiant somewhere in Ursa Major  
(I managed to plot only one).  The Geminids were weakly active.  Some  
nice and colorful meteors were seen.

The highlight was without doubt my first-ever Puppid-Velid !!  And  
what a meteor it was!!!  With this radiant at -45 degrees in  
declination, it reaches, at best, less than one degree above the  
horizon as it crosses the meridien.  So, it was quite a surprise for  
me to see one of these rare meteors come up!  At 3:20am EST , it  
appeared in the form of a spectacular earthgrazer that slowly crawled  
its way up and along the south-west horizon, from southern Canis  
Major all the way to the bright star Rigel in Orion.  The flight  
lasted a good 6 seconds, which seemed like an eternity, and it  
allowed me to turn my head and have a good look at it.  It was pure  
white in appearance, and had a sharp wake following behind.  The  
meteor gradually swelled up to mag -3, and its "head" looked like a  
disk before gracefully vanishing away.  This was one of the most  
beautiful meteors that I've seen this year!

Clear skies!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: December 7/8 2005
BEGIN: 0730 UT (0230 EST)  END: 0935 UT (0435 EST)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -75.063 West; Lat: 45.269 North  Elevation: 300 ft
City & Province: Boundary road, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting & cord align
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		MON (Monocerotids)_______________________06:20 (095) +08
		PUP (Puppids-Velids)_____________________08:08 (122) -45
		HYD (Sigma Hydrids)______________________08:08 (122) +03
		GEM (Geminids)___________________________07:16 (109) +33
		XOR - ANT (Chi Orionids)_________________05:48 (087) +23
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____SPO_GEM_MON_HYD_XOR_PUP

0730-0834__0740+09__1.00__6.06____4___1___1___1___3___1
0834-0935__0853+10__0.96__6.00___25___3___1___3___0___0

TOTALS:_____________1.96_________29___4___2___4___3___1 = 43

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

SPO____0___1___0___1___2___6___4___9___6_____+3.10
GEM____0___0___0___0___0___1___2___1___0_____+3.00
HYD____0___1___0___1___0___0___1___1___0_____+1.25
XOR____0___0___0___2___0___0___0___0___1_____+1.66
MON____0___0___0___0___0___1___0___1___0_____+3.00
PUP____1___0___0___0___0___0___0___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. The above table contains the magnitudes from all observed  
meteors, and the average (last column) for showers.
------------------------

SKY OBSCURED (FOV): None

F = 1.00

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

Dead time: 30 sec (breaks) + 7 min (plots) = 7.5 min

Breaks (UT): 9:10 (30sec)

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




More information about the Meteorobs mailing list