(meteorobs) Observation November 17/18 2006

[Pierre Martin]

Hello all,

I managed to get out for a quick meteor session late last night  
thanks to a small sucker hole at the Boundary road site.  I observed  
through a small hole before thick clouds took over again for good.   
During the clear break, the sky was surprisingly good reaching a  
limiting magnitude of 6.2-6.3.  Unfortunately, there was varying  
patchy clouds passing through.  At 2am, Raymond Dubois arrived and he  
setup his Nikon D200 to try and capture some meteors.

In over one hour, I recorded 11 Leonids, two Taurids, one alpha  
Monocerotid and three sporadics.  The most impressive meteor was an  
electric-green colored mag 0 Leonid that shot over 20 degrees across  
the zenith and left a long 3 second train.

Raymond's camera nearly captured a long path mag -1 Leonid in the  
western sky but it just narrowly missed his field of view.

Tonight's peak is looking almost certainly like a washout, but I'm  
still monitoring the weather in case something comes up.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: November 17/18 2006
BEGIN: 0635 UT (0135 EDT)  END: 0751 UT (0251 EDT)
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
		NTA (North Taurids)______________________04:20 +24
		STA (South Taurids)______________________04:16 +16
             	AMO (Alpha Monocerotids)_________________07:44 +01
		LEO (Leonids)____________________________10:12 +22
		SPO (sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_FIELD____Teff__LM_____SPO__LEO__NTA__STA__AMO

0635-0751__0833+42__1.22__6.20____3___11____2____0____1  =  17

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

SPO____0___0___0___0___1___2___0_____+3.66
LEO____1___1___2___1___2___3___1_____+2.36
NTA____0___0___0___0___2___0___0_____+3.00
AMO____0___0___0___0___0___1___0_____+4.00

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) (UT): 50% clouds from 6:35-55, 30% clouds from  
6:55-7:00, 20% clouds from 7:05-45, 50% clouds from 7:45-51

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

Dead time: 2.33 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 6:57 (20sec), 7:51-53