(meteorobs) Observation August 12/13 2010 + images

Sun Aug 22 20:48:20 EDT 2010

For the peak night of Thursday August 12, Ivo Leupi and I travelled  
together to the Irvine Lake airtrip, located about 2 hours drive west  
of Ottawa, just south of Denbigh, and north of Bon Echo Provincial  
Park.  After a mainly cloudy day, the skies began to clear up nicely  
around suppertime - a little better even than what the forecasts had  
predicted.  The sky looked very promising, and we were ready to be out  
all night!

Several observers and setups greeted our arrival at the airstrip  
(including Raymond Dubois, Eric Le May, Sanjeev Sivarulrasa, Bruce  
McGlashan, another fellow setup for imaging across from the airstrip,  
and later on Todd Weeks and Francine showed up to enjoy the Perseids  
with us until the morning).  We arrived before sunset with plenty of  
time to setup, and ensure that the cameras were ready to go as soon as  
it got dark enough.  Ovewrhead, skies were of about average (3/5)  
transparency, and completely free of any haze and fog.  After  
astronomical night, the limiting magnitude at the zenith reached over  
6.8.  The Milky Way was gorgeous, and set the stage very nicely for  
the Perseids peak night...

At 10:15pm, I settled in my lawn chair and began a long night of  
meteor observing.  In this first evening hour, the Perseids were  
active with 40 meteors (many of which were long path meteors).  The  
second hour (centered on midnight) increased with 66 Perseids, and  
then the third hour was also great with 82 Perseids.  The fourth hour  
(centered around 2:45am) saw a dip in rates to 65 Perseids.  However,  
the fifth hour (centered around 4am) was a very active one for  
Perseids with 101 meteors!  I then continued observing in the morning  
twilight as late as I could, right up till 5am.  In this final 37  
minutes of viewing, I saw an additional 40 Perseids.

All in all, an unforgettable night with what appeared to be a normal  
return of the broad traditional peak, with some bright meteors thrown  
in (no fewer than 35 negative magnitude Perseids, 5 of which were  
fireballs).  In just over five and a half hours of viewing, I logged a  
total of 462 meteors (including 394 Perseids, 8 Kappa Cygnids, 7  
antihelions, a surprising 7 Beta Perseids, 4 Delta Aquarids, 3  
Eridanids, 1 Capricornid and 38 sporadics).  This is one of the finest  
Perseids peak nights under optimal sky conditions that I've ever seen!

The best Perseid came at 2:11am... It was a stunning mag -5 fireball  
seen high up, that shot a long 30 degrees towards Cygnus.  It had a  
distinctive blue-green flare, followed by a terminal flash and a 12  
sec persistent train!  Two of our cameras managed to capture it.   
Another memorable moment came at 4:10am, when 6 meteors (four  
Perseids, one sporadic and one Beta Perseid) all came in the span of  
just 20 seconds, 4 of which were seen under 5 seconds!  Also notable  
was a very, very slow moving sporadic seen low in the north at  
12:17am... It grew very bright at mag -3 and it seemed barely faster  
than a fast moving satellite.  After all the zippy Perseids we had  
seen, this meteor felt like we were seeing in "super slow motion".   
You know it's slow when I hear someone ask "what's that moving  
light?"  It even lasted several seconds, which allowed many of those  
present to see it as well.  Eventually, the meteor turned a vivid  
yellow-orange and fragmented into a tight cluster of 3 distinct pieces  
of roughly equal size!!

The majority of those present stayed up all night.  Besides, with the  
various shouts of excitement at the bright meteors overhead, it would  
have been hard for anyone to try and go to sleep in our immediate  
vicinity :)  At the end, most opted to sleep in cars, tent or outside  
on a lawn chair.  Todd Weeks and Francine left us at 5am to enjoy some  
birdwatching in the area.

Here's my image results, starting with the composite of all meteors  
captured by the Canon 5DmkII, ISO 1250 and 16-35mm lens (set at 16mm f/ 
2.8).  Over the course of the entire night, this field of view  
captured 38 meteors.  The brightest meteors on this composite are mag  
-5 and mag -3...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/4916877417/sizes/o/in/photostream/

And here's my results from the Canon 300D (ISO 800) and 24mm lens (at  
f2.0).  This field of view managed to capture 14 Perseids.  The  
brightest meteor near the radiant is a mag -3...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13845235@N03/4916878375/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Here's a couple of pics (taken by Raymond Dubois) on the next morning  
after we woke up, of the mount and camera platform with the three  
digital SLR's:
http://quid-valorem.smugmug.com/Astronomie/Persieds-2010/13339438_gcoD9#969674828_WpYzz-X2-LB

Ivo Leupi and myself with our setup:
http://quid-valorem.smugmug.com/Astronomie/Persieds-2010/13339438_gcoD9#969670886_Kpibv-A-LB

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario

DATE:  August 12/13 2010
BEGIN: 02:15 UT (22:15 EDT) END: 09:00 UT (05:00 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -77 15' West; Lat: 45 1' North Elevation: 800 ft
City & Province: Irvine Lake Airstrip (near Denbigh), Ontario, 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
AUD (August Draconids - IMO video data)_________18:00 (270) +61
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_SDA_ANT_CAP_ERI_BPE_AUD

02:15-03:29__1.000__6.78__3___40___2___0___2___0___/___1___0
03:29-04:39__1.170__6.80__13__66___2___1___0___0___/___1___0
05:02-06:12__1.000__6.83__3___82___1___3___1___1___0___3___0
06:12-07:15__1.000__6.83__10__65___1___0___3___0___0___0___0
07:15-08:23__1.000__6.83__9___101__1___0___1___0___2___2___0
08:23-09:00__0.616__6.15__0___40___1___0___0___0___1___0___0

TOTALS:______5.786________38__394__8___4___7___1___3___7___0 = 462

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
_____-5__-4__-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5__+6______AVE

PER___1___1___3___5__25__30__47__79__66__88__42___7_____+2.42
SPO___0___0___1___0___0___2___1___6___4__15___8___1_____+3.37
KCG___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___4___1___1___2___0_____+3.13
ANT___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___5___0___1_____+4.14
BPE___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___2___3___1___0___0_____+2.57
SDA___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___2___1___0_____+4.00
ERI___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___3___0___0_____+4.00
CAP___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0___0___0_____+1.00

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: 35 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 2:29-42, 3:17-18, 4:39-5:02, 5:24-34, 6:49-52, 7:19-23,  
7:28-32