(meteorobs) Observation May 4/5 2005

Pierre Martin dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Fri May 6 13:57:01 EDT 2005


Hi all,

A short morning Aquarids session on Thursday morning... The Aquarids 
radiant was just rising, and would allow for about an hour's worth of 
observing before twilight.  The skies were surprisingly good when I got 
there for a site so close to the city.  The summer Milky Way was all 
the way up and showing some structure.  There was also lots of 
satellites going by.  I immediately got busy with meteor observing.  
The Eta Aquarids were active, but in very low numbers (which is to be 
expected with the radiant so low in the sky from 45 deg latitude).  No 
luck with earthgrazers this time, although one of them came close :)  
At 4:00am, a vehicle pulled in and it was Ken Whitnall who joined me to 
meteor observe into the morning twilight.  At almost 5:00am, we packed. 
  Thanks for the company Ken!

All in all, it was good to get some observing in at last :))

Here's my meteor report below (the LM took a hit due to observed in 
morning twilight)...

DATE: May 4/5 2005
BEGIN: 0715 UT (0315 EDT)  END: 0845 UT (0445 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 & cord align
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		SAG (Sagittarids - ANT)________________________15:40 (235) -19
		ETA (Eta Aquarids)_____________________________22:12 (333) -04
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____ETA_SAG_SPO

0715-0845__1858+17__1.45__5.83____4___0___7  = 11

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__0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5_____AVE

SPO____0___0___0___1___3___2___1_____+3.43
ETA____1___0___0___1___1___1___0_____+2.00

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 for period 0715-0845 UT

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

Dead time: 3 min total (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 7:18-19, 8:03-05

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



More information about the Meteorobs mailing list