(meteorobs) Observation August 10/11 2010 + images

Sun Aug 22 20:35:19 EDT 2010

The following night (Tuesday August 10) was clear, and seemed to favor  
a northern site.  So I went to the La Verendrye airstrip to spend the  
night there.  I arrived near 9:30pm EDT, and was greeted by several  
observers already there with their telescopes, imaging equipment, or  
lawn chairs for meteor observing.  From Ottawa, there was Sanjeev  
Sivarulrasa out for a night of imaging with his refractor, and Raymond  
Dubois setup with his DSLR's for meteor imaging.  There was also four  
guys from Montreal, all with scope setups.

Sky transparency was a solid average (3/5) and improved to above- 
average (4/5) late at night.  It was a comfortable night too, cool,  
and with zero bugs.  While setting up my mount and cameras, I could  
tell that Perseids activity was already quite strong, from the nice  
meteors that I saw on quick glances up, and also from the various  
exclaims of my fellow observers.  A major nuisance however, was the  
presence of two different groups (non-astronomers) camping out on both  
ends of the airstrip.  Every couple of minutes or so, a car or truck  
would drive to the other end, and occasionally stop (out of curiosity)  
to see what we were up to.  This caused lots of interruptions with car  
headlights.  This would go on until 11:30pm before settling down, and  
allowing dark sky adaptation to the gorgeous skies overhead.  Not a  
single car came by late a night.  The sky was gorgeous with a limiting  
magnitude reaching 7.2 at the zenith, and a fantastic-looking, nearly  
3-dimensional-like Milky Way dominating the sky above us.  The sky was  
also good enough to reveal M33 quite easily to the naked eye, the  
zodiacal band along the ecliptic, and even a small aurora low in the  
north.  The night was not without some occasional patchy clouds/haze  
passing through, but they moved on and the transparency actually  
improved near the end of the night.

The Perseids' were ramping up very nicely, with rates twice as high as  
the previous night.  The third hour in my watch was especially busy  
with 64 meteors (45 of which were Perseids).  The Perseids were also  
brighter too, with six negative magnitude meteors.  I observed for  
just under 4 hours up until morning twilight, recording a total of 188  
meteors (including 119 Perseids, 8 Kappa Cygnids, 7 Delta Aquarids, 5  
antihelions, 4 Eridanids, 3 Capricornids, 2 August Piscids, 1 Beta  
Perseid and 39 sporadics).

The best meteor was a mag -3 Perseid at 2:12am (EDT) that shot a 20  
degrees path, ending with a terminal flash and a 6 sec persistent  
train.  Another thrilling moment was the quick 3:06am appearance of a  
Perseid, sporadic and Delta Aquarid all within just one second.  I  
also had a few more quick and simultaneous meteor appearances.
The highlight of the night for me however, was trying out Sanjeev's  
excellent 8x40mm Zeiss binoculars - Just as I was enjoying M31, a  
colorful Perseid shot into the field of view, very near the galaxy,  
leaving behind a train that persisted for a few seconds!

On this night, I had two cameras running... I aimed my Canon 300D, ISO  
800 and 24mm f/1.4 lens (set at f/2.0) towards Andromeda, and took  
hundreds of pictures for the rest of the night.  I was fortunate to  
have some bright Perseids passing into this area of the sky...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/4916876417/sizes/o/in/photostream/

I also had a Canon 5DmkII, ISO 1250, with a 16-35mm lens (set at 19mm  
f/2.8), and I was able to catch a small aurora that was active low in  
the north.  Despite the huge field of view of this camera, I was a bit  
disappointed at the relatively small number of meteors captured.   
Still, the few Perseids that did appear in this part of the sky seemed  
to plunge right into the aurora...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/4916874527/sizes/o/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/4917475546/sizes/o/in/photostream/

The night ended with some exceptional seeing conditions - nice crisp  
views of Jupiter in some of the scopes.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario

DATE:  August 10/11 2010
BEGIN: 04:15 UT (00:15 EDT) END: 08:30 UT (04:30 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 29' West; Lat: 46 59' North
Observing site: Réserve Faunique La Verendrye, Québec, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, cord align
----------------------------------------------------------

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)___Teff___LM___SPO__PER_KCG_CAP_ANT_SDA_AUP_ERI_BPE

04:15-05:24__1.000__6.95__10__23___3___2___0___0___0___/___0
05:24-06:39__1.010__7.03__12__27___3___1___1___3___2___1___1
06:39-07:47__1.000__7.15__11__45___2___0___3___2___0___1___0
07:47-08:30__0.716__6.71__6___24___0___0___1___2___0___2___0

TOTALS:______3.726________39__119__8___3___5___7___2___4___1 = 188

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 (TEFF) represents effective observing time  
(corrected for breaks or any time not spent looking at the sky), where  
1.00 is exactly one hour. 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
_____-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5__+6______AVE

PER___1___1___4__12__19__22__20__24__11___5_____+2.48
SPO___0___0___1___2___0___4___4__16__11___1_____+3.69
KCG___0___0___0___1___0___0___3___3___1___0_____+3.25
SDA___0___0___0___0___1___1___3___2___0___0_____+2.86
ANT___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___4___0_____+4.40
ERI___0___0___0___0___1___0___1___2___0___0_____+3.00
CAP___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___2___0___0_____+3.66
AUP___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___1___0_____+4.00
BPE___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0_____+3.00

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: 31.5 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 5:00-09, 5:51 (30 sec), 5:55 (60 sec), 5:59-6:12,  
6:45-50, 6:58-7:01