(meteorobs) Observation April 23/24 2009

[Pierre Martin]

Hi all,

I'm finally catching up on my reports...


Here's my observations for last Thursday April 23 at Bootland Farm...
Joe Silverman, Colin Townsend and I got together for supper at the  
Antrim Truck Stop, and then went on to setup at Bootland Farm.  It was  
a great night for observing, with excellent (4-4.5/5) transparency,  
and fairly decent (3/5) seeing. The temperature plunged quickly though  
so we had to dress quite warm.  A light breeze made the night  
comfortably dry without any dew - a rarity for Bootland Farm!  I came  
prepared to enjoy some meteor observing.  Hundreds of Spring Peepers  
"peeped" loudly out in the woods, along with a single owl; really love  
that time of the year.

I settled down for a little over two hours of almost continuous meteor  
observing.  Activity was quite decent as I bagged 31 meteors (5  
antihelions, 4 Lyrids, one Xi Cygnid and 21 sporadics), many of which  
were plotted too.  It was a nice variety of different meteors, but  
nothing particularly bright was seen.  For more details, see my meteor  
data copied at the bottom...

Joe and I both slept comfortably in our cars for a few hours.  We woke  
up around 9am with a strong breeze blowing.  The temperature warmed up  
quickly under the Sun, sure felt nice.  We contemplated staying for a  
second night of observing, but we were unsure if the weather was going  
to cooperate.  So we left the site with our scopes still setup on  
standby, and went to downtown Arnprior for breakfast and then to the  
library to check the weather.  The latest CSC showed the worse case...  
a cloud problem, and maybe even some showers.  Yuck!  Saturday night  
looked even worse with LOTS of rain on the way.  As nice as it would  
have been to do multi-night observing, we felt it was too risky to  
stay for another night.  So we returned to the site to pack everything  
up and head back to town.  But with such a good night behind us, we  
weren't complaining too loudly ;)

Clear skies,

- Pierre



DATE: April 23/24 2009
BEGIN: 05:40 UT (01:40 EDT) END: 08:15 UT (04:15 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 45 23' North Elevation: 400 ft
Observing site: Bootland Farm, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
----------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________radiant position
LYR (Lyrids)_____________________________________17:52 (268) +34
ANT (Antihelion)_________________________________14:44 (221) -16
XCG (Xi Cygnids - IMO Sirko video data)__________20:20 (305) +40
SPO (sporadics)
----------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)_____FIELD______Teff____F______LM____SPO_LYR_ANT_XCG

05:40-06:45___16:18 +08___1.00___1.00___6.58___10___3___4___1
06:45-08:15___17:24 +08___1.33___1.00___6.58___11___1___1___0

TOTALS:___________________2.33_________________21___4___5___1  = 31

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__+2__+3__+4__+5______AVE

SPO___2___6___4___5___4_____+3.14
ANT___0___0___3___2___0_____+3.40
LYR___1___1___2___0___0_____+2.25
XCG___0___0___0___0___1_____+5.00

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  
(IMO definition). The above table contains the magnitudes from all  
observed meteors, and the average (last column) for showers.
------------------------

SKY OBSCURED (FOV) (UT): None

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

Dead time: 14.83 min (8 min for break and 6.83 min for plotting)

Breaks (UT): 7:18-26