(meteorobs) Observation July 28/29 2008
Pierre Martin
dob14.5 at sympatico.ca
Sun Aug 10 21:17:52 EDT 2008
I returned to Bootland Farm to observe the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday
July 29. It was a beautiful night with the sky approaching mag 6.6
at times. The moon became noticeable above the trees by 2:40am EDT,
but it was reduced to such a thin crescent that the interference was
minimal. I kept my field centered to the south. It was also a
comfortable night, with no pesky mosquitoes.
I setup for meteors starting at midnight and continued to the morning
twilight at 4:20am EDT, covering about 3.5 hours of effective
observing time (minus breaks). I had my two DSLR cameras with wide-
angle lenses running on auto-exposures.
I recorded a total of 82 meteors. The busiest hour produced 31
meteors alone. The sporadics made up a good part of the activity
with 33 seen. The Delta Aquarids produced low rates the first and
second hour, were much more active in the third hour, before turning
almost absent in the final half-hour period. The Alpha Capricornids
were mildly active throughout the night, producing some beautiful
slow meteors. The Perseids provided a low but constant trickle of
fast moving meteors. No Pisces Austrinids or Alpha Cygnids were seen.
The most impressive meteor came at 1:50am EDT while I was taking a
break from recording meteors to grab a snack. It was a mag -4 Alpha
Capricornid seen high up in Lyra. It crawled slowly, ending with a
bright blue double-flash, and leaving behind a train for 10 seconds.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: July 28/29 2008
BEGIN: 0355 UT (2355 EDT) END: 0820 UT (0420 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
SDA (Delta Aquarids)______________________________22:36 -16
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)__________________________20:20 -11
ANT (Antihelions)_________________________________21:08 -15
PAU (Pisces Austrinids)___________________________22:44 -30
PER (Perseids)____________________________________01:40 +53
ACY (Alpha Cygnids - non IMO shower))_____________20:40 +50
SPO (sporadics)
----------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)___FIELD____Teff____F______LM____SPO_SDA_CAP_ANT_PAU_PER_ACY
0355-0523___1955+06___1.00___1.00___6.55____8___3___6___0___0___3___0
0523-0634___2121+07___1.00___1.00___6.55___10___3___2___3___0___4___0
0634-0738___2221+08___1.00___1.00___6.49___11__10___3___3___0___4___0
0738-0820___2328+08___0.58___1.00___6.34____4___1___1___1___0___2___0
TOTALS:_______________3.58_________________33__17__12___7___0__13___0 =
82
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
_____-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5______AVE
SPO___0___0___1__10___8___9___5_____+3.21
SDA___1___0___2___3___4___6___1_____+2.82
PER___1___3___0___4___1___2___2_____+2.15
CAP___0___0___2___2___2___4___2_____+3.16
ANT___0___1___1___1___1___3___0_____+2.57
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: 50 min (incl breaks time)
Breaks (UT): 4:30-40, 4:42-45, 4:50-54, 5:01-06, 5:13-19, 5:33-38,
5:48-52, 6:26-28, 7:11-15, 7:39-46
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