(meteorobs) Observation July 29/30 2006

[Pierre Martin]

On Saturday July 29, the skies cleared beautifully before midnight,  
so I scrambled my gear and went to Bootland Farm.  I signed on just  
after 1:00am local time and continued meteor observing until the  
early morning twilight.

I was met with spectacular skies and excellent conditions.  The Milky  
Way just blazing away in a wealth of structure all the way down to  
the horizon!  M13 was visible in direct vision and M71 was barely  
visible against the glow of the Milky Way.  I turned around and could  
see very faintly M33 in averted vision.  This was some of the nicest  
skies that I've seen at this site.  The temperature was also cooler  
and more comfortable than the previous night.  No mosquitos!  :0)   
This time I was on my own - just me and the skies overhead. I turned  
on my radio to keep any unwanted wildlife away and got myself  
comfortable.  I estimated the Lm close to 6.6 at zenith.  Every now  
and then, distant pacts of coyotes could be heard yapping and  
howling, as well as a single owl softly hooting away.

In nearly 3 hours of effective observing time, I logged 83 meteors!   
Another very productive session!  As per the previous night, the  
sporadics were most active followed closely by the South Delta  
Aquarids.  Good numbers of beautiful Capricornids.  The two  
candidates for the Alpha Cygnids seen were again meeting the criteria.

Lots of faint meteors, but good numbers of bright ones too!

The highlight of the night was a spectacular mag -3 Pisces Austrinid  
earthgrazer that went a tremendous 40 degrees path and left a one  
second train.  This radiant culminates only 13 degrees above my  
horizon so these meteors are uncommon from my latitude.  But the ones  
that I see tend to be quite nice!  There was no mistaking its  
identity - it was too long and had a bit too much miss distance to be  
an SDA but it aligned well with the PAU!

Details below...

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: July 29/30 2006
BEGIN: 0510 UT (0110 EDT)  END: 0810 UT (0410 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 45 23' North  Elevation: 300 ft
City & Province: Bootland Farm, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting & cord align
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:________________________________________radiant  
position
		Cap (Alpha Capricornids)____________________20:32 -10
		Ant (Antihelion)____________________________21:16 -14
             	SDA (South Delta Aquarids)__________________22:40 -16
		PAU (Pisces Austrinids)_____________________22:52 -29
		PER (Perseids)______________________________01:56 +54
		ACY (Alpha Cygnids)_________________________20:15 +48
		SPO (sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____SPO_SDA_CAP_ANT_PAU_PER_ACY

0510-0612__2109+06__1.00__6.53____11__7___4___2___0___6___0
0612-0713__2243+07__1.01__6.55____10__5___2___3___1___7___2
0713-0810__2342+07__0.95__6.40____9___8___1___0___0___5___0

TOTALS:_____________2.96__________30__20__7___5___1__18___2  = 83

Note: 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__+6______AVE

SPO____0___0___0___0___3___1___8___11__6___1_____+3.63
SDA____0___0___0___1___0___3___6___5___5___0_____+3.45
CAP____0___0___1___2___1___1___0___2___0___0_____+1.43
ANT____0___0___0___0___0___1___0___1___1___2_____+4.60
PAU____1___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___0_____-3.00
PER____0___1___0___3___1___3___3___4___3___0_____+2.50
ACY____0___0___0___0___0___1___0___1___0___0_____+3.00

Note: 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: 2.5 min (breaks and plotting)

Breaks (UT): 5:13-15,  7:04 (30 sec)