(meteorobs) Observation August 13/14 2007 (Foymount)

Pierre Martin dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Fri Oct 12 01:24:03 EDT 2007


Hi all,

On Monday evening August 13, I travelled to Foymount to spend another  
night of meteor observing.  I had the pleasure to spend this night  
with the good company of Simon Hanmer and Sanjeev Sivarulrasa.  Simon  
was running his scope with a MallinCam video camera all night, while  
Sanjeev kept busy doing visual with his 14.5" dob.  It was a nice and  
very comfortable evening, I was well rested and looked forward to  
observing for several hours.

The skies remained clear all night, and were beautiful, but not  
nearly as dark or transparent as Otter Lake was a few nights ago.   
The Milky Way was still impressive, and the LM was between 6.6 and  
6.7.  (When I later reviewed my photos, I realized that very thin  
layers of cirrus clouds were moving through most of the night - hence  
the reason the sky looked a tad bit less impressive than usual for  
this site.  Because of the general lack of light pollution, any cloud  
were difficult if not impossible to see visually).  Despite the cool  
temperature, there was a low but constant amount of mosquitoes  
buzzing around me all night.

I had a very productive four and a half hours TEFF session!  I signed  
on at 11:13pm EDT and stayed at it until 4:50am EDT, taking only  
occasional short breaks to stretch my legs or to look into the other  
scopes.

One night after max, the Perseids continued to dominate the skies.   
Out of the 228 meteors that I recorded, 175 belonged to the Perseid  
stream.  The Perseids hourly rates seemed about normal until they  
skyrocketed to 50/hr during the fourth period!  This made for a busy  
and exciting night!!  It goes to show that surprises can happen even  
on the nights away from maximum.  The average Perseid magnitude came  
up to +2.74 which is about similar to the previous nights.  The two  
brightest Perseids were mag -2, just short of fireball-status.  Not  
too surprisingly, the largest number of meteors were of mag +2 and  
+3.  Other much weaker but noticeable activity included the Delta  
Aquarids, Kappa Cygnids and antihelions.

Highlights:
- 1:27am EDT; Faint mag +4 Perseid had no head and appeared as a  
moving wake only, unusual!
- 1:53am EDT; Mag -2 Perseid that flared blue and left an 8 sec train  
behind.
- 3:02am EDT; Two simultaneous meteors! One was a Perseid and the  
other a sporadic, going different directions but nearly crossed paths!
- 3:29am EDT; Mag -2 vivid BLUE Perseid that flared, bursted and left  
a 5 sec train... wow!
- 3:59am EDT; Two simultaneous Perseids!
- 4:19am EDT; Another pair of simultaneous Perseids, but far away  
from each other!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: August 13/14 2007
BEGIN: 0313 UT (2313 EDT) END: 0850 UT (0450 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -77.304 West; Lat: 45.431 North  Elevation: 1800 ft
City & Province: Foymount, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, cord align
----------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________radiant position
PER (Perseids)____________________________________03:09 +58
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)__________________________21:20 -05
ANT (Antihelions)_________________________________22:08 -09
SDA (South 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

0313-0430___2338+43___1.28___1.00___6.65___9___35__0___1___1___1
0440-0545___0106+43___1.00___1.00___6.66___8___32__0___0___2___1
0545-0708___0132+34___1.00___1.00___6.64___8___38__0___1___2___0
0708-0819___0315+34___1.00___1.00___6.63___10__50__0___3___0___1
0819-0850___0358+34___0.40___1.00___6.45___5___20__0___0___0___0

TOTALS:_______________4.68_________________40__175_0___5___5___3 = 228

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
______-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5__+6______AVE

PER____2___4___5__21__44__44__32__20___3_____+2.74
SPO____0___0___1___2___6__14__12___3___2_____+3.38
ANT____0___0___0___0___0___3___1___1___0_____+3.60
SDA____0___0___0___0___0___1___3___1___0_____+4.00
KCG____0___0___1___0___1___1___0___0___0_____+1.66

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: 46 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 4:30-40, 5:10-15, 5:57-6:08, 6:22-31, 6:53-56, 7:31-42,  
8:32-39





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