(meteorobs) Observation October 21/22 2006

Pierre Martin dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Mon Oct 23 23:42:34 EDT 2006


Hello,

On Saturday evening, I joined several people at Boundary road.   
Raymond Dubois and I setup next to each other to watch and photograph  
the Orionids until dawn.  The conditions were decent with a sky that  
would stay clear all night.   The transparency started below-average  
but then it got better after 2am as the light pollution domes got  
noticeably smaller.  The transparency dropped after 5am and clouds  
started to move in at 6am.  The limiting magnitude facing the south- 
eastern sky was a respectable 6.0-6.2. The winter Milky Way was just  
noticeable without any structure.  The temperature dropped below  
freezing and a thick layer of frost covered everything.  The Zodiacal  
Light was faintly visible in the east before dawn.  Considering the  
disappointment of the previous night's weather, I was pleased to be  
under those skies.

GO ORIONIDS indeed!  They did not disappoint.  In sharp contrast to  
my recent Draconid attempt under a bright Moon, this was a highly  
entertaining night!  Less than a minute after I signed-on at 23:10  
EDT, a spectacular Orionid earthgrazing bullet shot 60 degrees across  
the zenith and into the west!  A few minutes later another long  
meteor was seen but closer to the horizon.  Over the course of the  
night, activity quickly increased as the radiant climbed.  The  
brighter ones would typically be yellow or green colored and leave  
brief trains behind.  The rates were quite steady but not without a  
few lulls.  However, there was a good crop of sporadics and other  
minor showers to fill in.  I also has some quick clusterings of  
activity.  One such clustering happened at 4:03 EDT when as many as 6  
meteors were seen in a minute!  My best hour had a whopping 41  
Orionids!  After several years of monitoring these meteors, I've come  
to expect a modest but reliable activity.  This year's rates are the  
highest I've ever seen of this shower.  What the heck is going on  
with this shower???  I suppose even an "old reliable" is capable of  
surprises :0)

I managed to capture several nice Orionids with my two DSLR cameras.   
You can view them either on spaceweather.com or on the OAOG site  
below.  Photo details:  Canon 30D with 20mm lens at f/2.8, Canon  
Digital Rebel with 35mm lens at f/2.0, 800 ASA, 20s unguided  
exposures.  These images are the co-adding of multiple exposures  
stacked together...
http://tinyurl.com/ygbcl3
http://tinyurl.com/yftq6j
http://tinyurl.com/yayg4x
http://tinyurl.com/ylp395
http://tinyurl.com/ykcgpm
http://tinyurl.com/yn2sjn

This night was marked by many beautiful meteors but two of them  
really stood out from the bunch.  At 3:56 EDT, a slow moving sporadic  
earthgrazer swelled up to -3 mag brightness with a yellow-white  
color.  It crawled along a 40 degrees path on a shallow angle very  
low in the south.  It was neat to see this bright meteor move behind  
a row of trees.  I was very fortunate to have the camera pointed in  
that direction when it went by...
http://tinyurl.com/yna5af
I thought the above would be the highlight of the night but I was  
wrong.  The most memorable moment was an incredible earthgrazing  
meteor that came only 7 minutes later (at 4:03 EDT)... I first  
noticed a movement behind my head and looked around to see what had  
to be the most ***BEAUTIFUL*** meteor I've seen this year........ and  
likely will go into the top 10 meteors of my lifetime!!!  It's not  
that it was so bright (reaching about mag -1), but it was one of the  
slowest moving, longest-lasting and most intensely ORANGE-colored  
meteors I've ever seen!  This beauty crawled barely faster than a  
fast-moving satellite.  It had a distinct round shape with a golden  
train following behind that had a length of several degrees.  The  
meteor just kept crawling down into the north-east for a full 8  
seconds (which sure seemed like an eternity) before it finally  
fragmented into three pieces!  The smaller fragments lagged behind  
behind a bit, moved on for another 3 seconds and gradually dimmed  
into the darkness.  As if this wasn't enough, a small burst of  
several Orionids happened all at the same time.  Two of the Orionids  
nearly crossed the path of the earthgrazer!  What a sight!!!!!!

This session reminded me of why I love to do this so much.  With my  
thick -40C-rated sleeping bag, my favorite camp-cot angled to 30  
degrees, a thermos of hot chocolate, a radio playing softly in the  
background, howling coyotes, camera shutters softly clicking away  
while colorful meteors streaked overhead... it was easy to forget the  
coolness and humidity.  Raymond also shared some nice hot homemade  
vegetable soup... thanks!

At 6am EDT, the morning's first light was glimpsed just as thickening  
clouds were starting to take over.  Raymond and I both packed all our  
frozen, frost-covered equipment and headed off.

All in all a wonderful night!  Meteor data will follow seperately...

Clear skies,

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



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