(meteorobs) Observation August 11/12 2006

[Pierre Martin]

Hello all,

Here's my meteor report for last Saturday morning at Bootland Farm  
(just west of Ottawa).  On this night, I had the company of Misha  
Svoiski and his daughter as well as Frank Maloney and his son.  Misha  
had a Nikon DSLR setup to try and capture some meteors.  While I  
setup my own cameras, I heard a number of oohh and ahh'ing from  
occasional bright meteors that went by.

This night got unusually cool and humid, reaching about 7C.  The  
skies were highly transparent with parts of the Milky Way remaining  
visible despite the bright moonlight.  The Perseids provided slightly  
lower rates than I expected given the very clear skies, but quite a  
few long and bright meteors especially around midnight.  In all, I  
recorded 56 Perseids in a little more than three and a half hours  
teff.  The brightest meteor seen was a mag -3 yellow-orange Perseid  
that shot 30 degrees and left a 10 seconds train.

There was one major fireball event that my automated Canon DSLR  
captured some minutes after I ended my watch and went to sleep near  
the end of the night.  I suppose that it's not so bad to sleep on the  
job sometimes ;0)  See... http://tinyurl.com/jl84f

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: August 11/12 2006
BEGIN: 0315 UT (2315 EDT)  END: 0741 UT (0341 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
		PER (Perseids)______________________________03:12 +58
		KCG (Kappa Cygnids)_________________________18:55 +58
             	SDA (South Delta Aquarids)__________________23:24 -12
		Ant (Antihelion)____________________________22:12 -08
		SPO (sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____SPO__PER_KCG_SDA_ANT

0315-0430__1702+67__1.01__5.65____2___15___0___/___/
0430-0546__1815+67__1.00__5.60____1___10___0___/___/
0546-0654__1912+67__1.00__5.60____5___18___1___/___/
0654-0741__2027+65__0.66__5.60____3___13___1___/___/

TOTALS:_____________3.67_________11___56___2___/___/  = 69

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______AVE

SPO____0___0___0___0___1___3___1___5___1_____+3.18
PER____1___2___1___5___6__10__14__12___5_____+2.38
KCG____0___0___0___0___0___1___0___1___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: 45.5 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 3:19-21, 3:22-23, 4:04-16, 5:02-10, 5:24-32, 6:12-17,  
6:27-30, 6:57-7:00, 7:20-24