(meteorobs) Observation August 10/11 2007 (Bootland Farm)

[Pierre Martin]

A few nights later, I returned to Bootland Farm to observe for a few  
hours.  The skies were very clear with above-average (4/5)  
transparency during the second half of the night.  A very faint  
portion of the zodiacal band across the ecliptic was visible.  The  
temperature was comfortable, and the few evening mosquitoes soon  
disappeared after dark.  I was looking forward to seeing what the  
Perseids would be up to just two nights before max.  I faced the  
north-east sky to keep the Perseid radiant in my field of view.

In four hours, I recorded 152 meteors!  Another entertaining night -  
not many lulls and a number of instances of two meteors appearing  
within a second of each other!  The Perseids were more than twice as  
numerous as the sporadic background, and provided most of the  
excitement (but there was a few other surprises).  They increased to  
a rate of 30/hr in the last hour.  A large number of them produced  
trains.

The most noteworthy events include:
- 11:43pm EDT; a mag 0 and +1 Perseids just one sec apart!
- 12:14am EDT; slow-moving mag -1 sporadic with a very vivid GOLDEN  
color crawled along a 20 degree path... dramatic!
- 3:53am EDT; mag -3 yellow Perseid fireball with a 14 sec persistent  
train
- 4:09am EDT; two nearly simultaneous Perseids separated by just two  
degrees of each other.
- 4:14am EDT; mag -3 blue Kappa Cygnid fireball that flashed and left  
behind a train for 8 seconds!
- 4:16am EDT; mag -2 blue Perseid shooting across 30 degrees of the  
sky, and leaving behind a 4 sec segmented train.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: August 10/11 2007
BEGIN: 0320 UT (2320 EDT) END: 0830 UT (0430 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 45 23' North Elevation: 400 ft
City & Province: Bootland Farm, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, cord align
----------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________radiant position
PER (Perseids)____________________________________03:04 +58
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)__________________________21:20 -05
ANT (Antihelions)_________________________________22:08 -09
SDA (Delta Aquarids)______________________________23:20 -13
KCG (Kappa Cygnids)_______________________________18:52 +58
SPO (sporadics)
----------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)___FIELD____Teff____F______LM___SPO_PER_CAP_ANT_SDA_KCG

0320-0430___2354+61___1.16___1.00___6.45___10__17__0___1___0___1
0439-0602___0104+61___1.00___1.00___6.49____8__22__1___0___3___1
0602-0732___0244+71___1.00___1.00___6.55___15__27__0___2___0___0
0732-0830___0124+11___0.92___1.00___6.55___10__30__0___0___3___1

TOTALS:_______________4.08_________________43__96__1___3___6___3 = 152

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 not spent  
looking at the sky). The 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

PER____1___1___0___4__14__17__23__27___7___2_____+2.78
SPO____0___0___1___0___3___5__12__12___7___3_____+3.47
SDA____0___0___0___0___0___0___5___1___0___0_____+3.16
ANT____0___0___0___0___0___0___0___3___0___0_____+4.00
KCG____1___0___0___1___1___0___0___0___0___0_____-0.66
CAP____0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0___0_____+2.00

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): None

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

Dead time: 56 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 4:30-39, 5:11-21, 5:28-41, 6:20-45, 6:49-52, 7:25-27,  
7:50-53