(meteorobs) Observation December 7/8 2005

[bmccurdy at telusplanet.net]

Quoting Pierre Martin <dob14.5 at sympatico.ca>:

> 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)
> 
> -------------------------
> 
> 
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