(meteorobs) Observation August 6/7 2010

[Pierre Martin]

I was out at the Pendleton airport (GGC) again this past Friday  
night.  I was hoping to observe for most of the night.  In attendance  
was Bruce and Shane, both of which stayed until morning for visual and  
imaging.

We spent most of the evening waiting for a bank of cloud cover to move  
out of the way.  It finally did after midnight, paving the way for a  
few hours of gorgeous clear skies.  The transparency was excellent,  
with lots of structure in the Milky Way and stars down to mag 6.5  
around the zenith.  A really beautiful night.  Cool enough for a good  
jacket and sleeping bag.  As I waited for the clear window, I was  
seeing good numbers of meteors in clear patches in between clouds.   
Saw a nice 20 degrees long mag -3 sporadic in the south.  Another was  
a mag +1 yellow-orange meteor that seemed to climb very slowly out of  
Bootes.

At 1am EDT, it was completely clear, so I signed on.  Over the course  
of the next 2 hours and 20 minutes, I recorded a total of 64 meteors.   
The Perseids were the dominating activity and I saw as many as 28 of  
them!  (The second hour was especially busy with 17 Perseids alone!)  
Minor activity came out of many other active sources too.  I even saw  
as many as five Beta Perseids (BPE), in the form of very swift meteors  
radiating from a point near Algol.  I've suspected seeing these  
meteors several years back, but could never really confirm them.  It's  
great to see the IMO's video database appearing to confirm their  
existence.  I was running one DSLR all night, and I even managed to  
capture one of the brighter Beta Perseids.

The Perseids seemed to be quite bright on this night.  The brightest  
one was yellow-to-green mag -4 fireball seen at 2:59am EDT low in the  
north-east.  It had a terminal flash, and left an 8 sec persistent  
train.  Other bright Perseids included a pair of mag -2's (one of  
which left an 8 sec train).

I was hoping to stay on to complete a third hour, but approaching  
clouds forced me to stop.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: August 6/7 2010
BEGIN: 05:00 UT (01:00 EDT) END: 07:20 UT (03:20 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -75.092 West; Lat: 45.568 North
Observing site: Pendleton Airport, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
----------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________radiant position
PER (Perseids)__________________________________02:44 (041) +56
KCG (Kappa Cygnids)_____________________________18:50 (282) +47
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)________________________20:45 (311) -07
ANT (antihelion)________________________________21:52 (328) -11
SDA (Delta Aquarids)____________________________23:12 (348) -14
AUP (August Piscids - IMO video data)___________00:44 (011) +19
ERI (Eridanids - IMO video data)________________02:50 (042) -11
BPE (Beta Perseids - IMO video data)____________03:02 (046) +40

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

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

PERIOD(UT)___FIELD_____Teff___LM___SPO_PER_KCG_CAP_ANT_SDA_AUP_ERI_BPE

05:00-06:00__22:59+11__1.000__6.52__5___9___1___2___0___4___0___0___3
06:00-07:01__00:06+13__1.010__6.52__5___17__1___0___3___1___1___1___2
07:01-07:20__00:47+12__0.316__6.52__2___2___0___0___2___2___0___1___0

TOTALS:________________2.326________12__28__2___2___5___7___1___2___5   
= 64

Notes: The first column (Period UT) refers to observing periods, 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) Teff is  
simply the total time during the observing session spent actually  
watching the sky. Breaks and/or dead time are not included in the  
reported Teff. It is reported in decimal format such that a 60 minute  
observing session would be reported as Teff = 1.00.  The column (LM)  
is the average naked eye limiting magnitude seen.  All following  
columns indicate the number of meteors for each shower observed.  For  
more info, see: http://www.namnmeteors.org/guidechap2.html
------------------------

MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

SHOWER
_____-4__-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5______AVE

PER___1___0___2___0___0___5___5___7___3___5_____+2.32
SPO___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___3___6___2_____+3.58
SDA___0___0___0___0___0___2___2___1___2___0_____+2.43
ANT___0___0___0___0___0___2___1___0___0___2_____+3.40
BPE___0___0___0___1___0___0___1___2___1___0_____+2.20
KCG___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___1___0_____+3.50
CAP___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___1___0_____+2.50
ERI___0___0___0___0___0___1___1___0___0___0_____+1.50
AUP___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0___0_____+1.00

Notes: 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: 0.5 min (break)

Breaks (UT): 6:35 (30 sec)