(meteorobs) Observation August 13/14 2010

Tue Aug 24 18:07:14 EDT 2010

Here's my results for the night following the peak.  I was now  
starting to be tired from a few long nights out (and a lot of time  
spent driving) but I was interested in a hunt for any possible  
activity from the summer variant of the Chi Capricornids (even if the  
theoretical radiant was low in my sky).  I was not up for a long trip  
out of town, and the high cirrus clouds made it an iffy night.  So I  
went to the FLO, less than an hour from home.  When I got there, it  
was a busy place with a small group being given a sky tour.  Also  
there was Bill Wagstaff and his wife with lawn chairs watching for  
late Perseids, and two other guys with scopes doing imaging.  I signed  
on at 11:10pm (EDT) and I managed to observe for four hours.  The  
entire night was plagued with varying amounts of cirrus clouds,  
resulting in 10-20% obstruction in my field of view for much of the  
night.  For this session, I faced south to keep Capricornus in view -  
just in case of any activity from that area.

Not too surprisingly, the Perseids remained the dominating shower  
source, although they were much less active already, just one day  
after the peak.  They produced under twenty meteors per hour for most  
of the night, except for a small surge of 26 of them seen during my  
final hour.  The Perseids were a little brighter than I expected, with  
8 meteors of negative magnitude.  The best Perseid was a mag -3  
fireball at 2:27am EDT that shot 20 degrees into Draco, with a  
terminal flash and a 6 sec train.  I was surprised to see some Delta  
Aquarids so late in their activity period.  They've been weakly but  
steadily active on pretty much all of my August outings.  Besides the  
known sources, I monitored the IMO video showers Beta Perseids, August  
Draconids (now split from the previously believed 'large' Kappa Cygnid  
radiant) and Eridanids as per Bob Lunsford's weekly updates.

In 4 hours of viewing, I saw 111 meteors (including 75 Perseids, 5  
Delta Aquarids, 4 antihelions, 4 August Draconids, 3 Kappa Cygnids, 1  
Eridanid and 19 sporadics).

Although I plotted three slowish meteors from the Capricornus area,  
these could easily be explained by the presence of the antihelion  
source or chance alignment from sporadics.  Otherwise, I saw no  
obvious signs of Chi Capricornid activity/outburst at or around the  
predicted 3:30 UT.

One of the more memorable meteors of the night came at 1:58am.  It was  
a mag -1 blue-white sporadic that moved at a rather leisurely pace  
from Andromeda all the way to Pisces, covering about 40 degrees!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario

DATE:  August 13/14 2010
BEGIN: 03:10 UT (23:10 EDT) END: 07:15 UT (03:15 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76 15' 50" West; Lat: 45 15' 2" North
City & Province: Almonte, 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

03:10-04:10__1.00__6.10__2___18___1___2___1___0___/___0___2
04:10-05:10__1.00__6.20__5___16___2___1___1___0___/___0___0
05:10-06:13__1.01__6.16__8___15___0___1___2___0___0___0___1
06:13-07:15__1.03__6.14__4___26___0___1___0___0___1___0___1

TOTALS:______4.04________19__75___3___5___4___0___1___0___4 = 111

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______AVE

PER___1___1___6___8__13__10__10__16__10_____+2.21
SPO___0___0___1___0___2___1___1__10___4_____+3.47
SDA___0___0___0___0___0___1___1___3___0_____+3.40
ANT___0___0___0___0___1___1___2___0___0_____+2.25
AUD___0___0___2___0___1___0___0___0___1_____+1.00
KCG___0___0___0___0___1___1___1___0___0_____+2.00
ERI___0___0___0___0___1___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): Yes

10% clouds from 3:10-4:10
10% clouds from 4:10-4:50
10% clouds from 5:46-6:03
20% clouds from 6:03-6:58
20% clouds from 7:05-7:15

F value correction (UT):
03:10-04:10__1.11
04:10-05:10__1.08
05:10-06:13__1.14
06:13-07:15__1.20

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

Dead time: 3 min (breaks and plots)

Breaks (UT): 5:27-28, 7:10 (30 sec)