(meteorobs) Observation August 16/17 2010

[Pierre Martin]

For the final night (Monday August 16) of my 2010 Perseids observing  
effort, I went back to the FLO.  This time, the sky was very clear  
with good transparency.  Another busy night there... Present was Eric  
Le May with an 11" SCT for imaging, another guy was setup with 120mm  
refractor, several guests were present, and there was a training  
session in progress at the club's 16" scope.  The company was great  
though.  The first half of the night had a Quarter Moon low in the  
south-west, but I enjoyed spending some time observing with my 12"  
dob.  Following moonset, I settled for a little more than a 2 hours  
meteor watch.

Perseids rates were, as expected, down quite a bit from a few days  
ago.  They were pretty much on par with the sporadic background.  The  
first hour had 9 Perseids, and then only 6 in the second hour despite  
the rising radiant.  The final 19 minutes somewhat surged with 6  
Perseids.

Altogether, I saw 51 meteors (including 21 Perseids, 4 antihelions, 3  
Kappa Cygnids, 2 Delta Aquarids, 2 Eridanids and 1 August Draconid).

The best meteor was at 1:58am when a mag -2 Eridanid earthgrazer shot  
40 degrees across the zenith, leaving behind a one second train.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE:  August 16/17 2010
BEGIN: 05:45 UT (01:45 EDT) END: 08:20 UT (04:20 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)__________________________________03:24 (051) +58
KCG (Kappa Cygnids)_____________________________16:06 (287) +52
ANT (antihelion)________________________________22:20 (335) -08
SDA (Delta Aquarids)____________________________23:36 (354) -12
AUD (August Draconids - IMO video data)_________18:14 (273) +62
ERI (Eridanids - IMO video data)________________03:12 (048) -09

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

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

PERIOD(UT)___Teff___LM___SPO_PER_KCG_ANT_SDA_AUD_ERI

05:45-06:45__0.990__6.41__9___9___1___2___1___1___1
06:45-08:01__1.000__6.43__7___6___1___1___1___0___1
08:01-08:20__0.316__6.43__2___6___1___1___0___0___0

TOTALS:______2.306________18__21__3___4___2___1___2 = 51


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

PER___0___1___2___3___3___3___6___3_____+2.66
SPO___0___0___0___0___3___3___7___5_____+3.77
ANT___0___0___0___0___0___0___4___0_____+4.00
KCG___0___1___0___0___1___0___1___0_____+1.66
SDA___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___1_____+4.50
ERI___1___0___0___1___0___0___0___0_____-0.50
AUD___0___0___0___0___0___1___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: 0.99 min (plots) + 15.5 min (breaks) = 16.49 min

Breaks (UT): 7:42-57, 7:58 (30 sec)