(meteorobs) Observation October 21/22 2007 (Bootland Farm)

Mon Oct 29 03:54:28 EDT 2007

Hello Pierre,
Many thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
I had also a great time during the night of 21/22 oktober.
During the day there was a small front with some clouds and rain passing the 
Netherlands from east to west. It was uncertain when sky's would be clear at 
Ermelo (the village were I live) so I took a train to the east and teamed up 
with some friends (Carl Johannink, Sietse Dijkstra, Peter van Leuteren, Rita 
Verhoef) at the public observatory Cosmos near Lattrop. It is a dark site 
and when I arrived the sky was clear and the air was dry.
I started with my observations at 23:05 UT, almost 2 hours before moonset. 
And almost immediately Orionids starts to appear. Many weak ones, but also a 
couple of bright ones. I did not see fireballs this night (like 19/20 
oktober), but two fellow observers saw a -8 (!) Leo Minorid at the end of 
the night. I saw only the bright flash and a big persistent train.
Around moonset another observer arrived at our location: who is this? What 
the heck! It was Michel Vandeputte and his girlfriend. He drove all the way 
(in about 4 hours) from Belgium to Lattrop! What a effort to observe this 
stream!
>From 00:30 UT I had Orionid counts up to 50+ under 6.6 sky's. The radiant 
was rising at that time, but rates stayed a the same level, so we were 
observing declining activity of the Orionids. Some ZHR calculations done by 
me, Carl and Michel suggested a ZHR of 100 at 1:00 UT and then slowly 
dropping down to 60-70 at the end of the night (4:30 UT).

In total I saw 247 Orionids and 104 other meteors (LMI, NTA, STA,  EGE and 
SPO). My observations are submitted to IMO and you can find them here :
http://umdb.urania.be/v2/obsview/view.php?id=2509 . As a group we saw 1600+ 
meteors! What a great night and time we had.

I had also a Canon 40D with an Canon EF 2.8/15 mm hish eye running. A brand 
new camera and I had till then no time to study the manual. Unfortunately I 
had a some difficulties to use this camera. Consequence of this : I took 
pictures with the diagfragma set at 5.6.... Even so I captured six meteors 
this night (4 ORI, 1 EGE, 1 LMI) , but not as beautiful as your pictures.
best wishes,
Koen

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pierre Martin" <dob14.5 at sympatico.ca>
Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 1:39 AM
Subject: (meteorobs) Observation October 21/22 2007 (Bootland Farm)

> Here's my belated report for Monday morning October 22...
>
> At 1am, I left home and drove about one hour to Bootland Farm (dark
> site west of Ottawa, Ontario).  On the way, I was thinking what the
> Orionids would be like one day after the peak.  Would there still be
> elevated rates?  Would the bright meteors continue?  I figured that
> anything was possible, but I thought I'd be difficult to beat the
> previous night which was exceptional!  As I drove, I lucked in when a
> beautiful mag -3 meteor dropped towards the horizon.  I couldn't be
> entirely sure, but it looked like it could have been a Taurid.
>
> When I arrived at Bootland Farm, I was greeted by a crystal clear
> skies and a setting Moon.  Unlike the previous night, this time it
> was a solo session... just me and the skies overhead.  I could not
> have asked for a nicer late-October night.  The temperature felt so
> mild at 12C that I left my sleeping bag in the car.  I was perfectly
> comfortable with just a light jacket.  A nice breeze blew from the
> south-west, and the night was entirely free of any dew.  Overhead, I
> estimated the transparency at 4/5.  After moonset, the skies held
> steady above 6.5 mag until dawn.  Orion and the surrounding "winter
> constellations" looked good!  A faint Gegenshein was visible along
> the ecliptic.  I proceeded to setting up my mount and cameras to get
> the photography under way, and then I settled in my lawn chair for
> formal counts...
>
> I observed for almost 3 hours TEFF (only 8 minutes less than the
> previous night) covering the hours of 7:15 UT (3:15am EDT) to 10:25
> UT (6:25am EDT).
>
> Right off the bat, the Orionids were VERY active!  In fact, to my
> surprise they were even stronger than the previous night!  My first
> period (60 minutes) had 63 Orionids (ORI) while the second period
> (59.5 minutes) rocketed to 69 ORI!  My final period (cut short to 52
> minutes due to twilight) was still quite strong with 46 ORI.  These
> rates made for some of the highest meteor activity that I've seen so
> far this year.  By combining all other activity (such as sporadics
> and other minor showers) of this session, the total number of meteors
> is 222.  This total is just 6 meteors short of what I achieved during
> a full night of post-maximum Perseids observing at a pristine dark
> site.  This year's Orionids sure didn't disappoint!
>
> As with the previous night, some bright Orionids appeared (although
> no fireballs).  The brightest ones reached mag -2.  The average ORI
> magnitude was +2.93.  There was also lots of the faint guys too, so
> I'm sure that the good sky conditions helped.  The brighter Orionids
> were typically colored blue-green with a few yellow and some orange
> ones too.  As is often the case with a high rate of meteors, there
> was several bursts of meteors happening.   I noted 13 instances of
> two Orionids seen within one second, and 2 instances of a pair of
> simultaneous Orionids!
> A few Orionids appeared very close to the radiant.  These were so
> foreshortened that they appeared almost stationary!
>
> Exactly 25% of all Orionids left persistent trains lasting at least 1
> second.  This was the case especially for the brighter meteors.  The
> most impressive was a 30 seconds train left behind by a mag -2
> Orionid 5:59am EDT.  Just one minute later, a mag -1 Orionid flashed
> and left a 15 seconds long train!
>
> The finest meteor of the night came almost at the end of the
> session.  At 6:17am EDT, with skies brightening in twilight, a
> spectacular EARTHGRAZER appeared!  Something first caught my
> attention around Ursa Major and I saw this gorgeous golden colored
> meteor slowly climbing towards the zenith!  I kept following it as it
> passed the zenith and descended to the south-west.  There was a wake
> following for a few degrees behind the meteor.  I actually had to
> turn my head around to keep following it.  After a dramatic 12
> seconds or so of flight (that felt like an eternity for a meteor),
> the meteor began to gradually fade away as it sank below Orion.  I
> estimated that it must have crossed well over 100 degrees of the
> sky!  The meteor was very even in brightness and appearance along its
> entire path.  It was surely one of the prettiest earthgrazers that
> I've ever seen!
>
> I signed off at 6:25am EDT, took a quick nap before heading in to
> work.  It was a night to remember!  :0)
>
> Pierre Martin
> Ottawa, Ontario
>
> P.S. My two cameras captured several meteors during this session.
> Stay tune...
>
>
> DATE: October 21/22 2007
> BEGIN: 0715 UT (0315 EDT) END: 1025 UT (0625 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
> NTA (North Taurids)_______________________________02:36 +18
> STA (South Taurids)_______________________________02:40 +12
> ORI (Orionids)____________________________________06:20 +16
> EGE (Epsilon Geminids)____________________________07:00 +27
> LMI (Leo Minorids)________________________________10:56 +37
> XGE (Xi Geminids)_________________________________06:56 +11
> SPO (sporadics)
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
>
> PERIOD(UT)___FIELD____Teff____F______LM___SPO_ORI_EGE_NTA_STA_LMI_XGE
>
> 0715-0815___0554+10___1.00___1.00___6.50____8__63___3___1___0___1___2
> 0815-0931___0632+11___0.99___1.00___6.57___13__69___1___0___1___1___0
> 0931-1025___0657+11___0.87___1.00___6.47____9__46___2___0___0___2___0
>
> TOTALS:_______________2.86_________________30__178__6___1___1___4___2  =
>  222
>
> 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
>
> ORI____2___4__13__23__23__37__36__34___6_____+2.93
> SPO____0___0___0___3___0__10__12___5___0_____+3.53
> EGE____0___0___0___0___4___0___2___0___0_____+2.66
> LMI____0___0___0___0___3___1___0___0___0_____+2.25
> XGE____0___0___0___0___1___0___0___1___0_____+3.50
> NTA____0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0_____+4.00
> STA____0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___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):  none
>
> ------------------------
>
> Dead time: 18.5 min (breaks)
>
> Breaks (UT): 9:01-10, 9:20-27, 9:29 (30sec), 10:13-15
>
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