(meteorobs) Observation November 9/10 2010

[Pierre Martin]

Another evening session at the Fred Lossing Observatory... I watched  
between 9:20pm-11:40pm EST.  I had the company of Sanjeev, Bruce, Joe  
and Eric on this night who kept busy with scopes.  The sky was  
impressive, with good transparency and 6.5 mag stars overhead.  It's  
unusual for eastern Ontario to get such good skies in November!

For this two hour session, I saw 13 meteors (5 South Taurids, 4  
sporadics, 3 North Taurids and 1 Andromedid).

By far, the highlight of the night was the Andromedid (AND) at 11:15pm  
EST.  It was an impressively slow yellowish meteor that crawled in  
northern Cetus, reaching mag -2.  It was well seen and lined up  
perfectly with the AND radiant!  Bruce was standing next to me and  
witnessed this meteor too, judging by his loud "OH WOW!" :)

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: November 9/10 2010
BEGIN: 02:20 UT (21:20 EST) END: 04:40 UT (23:40 EST)
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, plotting
----------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________radiant position

NTA (North Taurids)_____________________________03:38 (055) +22
STA (South Taurids)_____________________________03:42 (056) +14
ORI (Orionids)__________________________________07:14 (109) +16
LEO (Leonids)___________________________________09:50 (148) +25
AND (Andromedids - IMO video)___________________01:27 (022) +27

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

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

PERIOD(UT)___Teff___LM____SPO_AND_NTA_STA_ORI_LEO

02:20-03:22__1.00___6.50___2___0___1___3___/___/
03:30-04:40__1.13___6.47___2___1___2___2___0___0

TOTALS:______2.13__________4___1___3___5___0___0  = 13


Note: The first column (Period UT) refers to the observed periods, in  
Universal Time. The second column (TEFF) is the effective observing  
time, it is minutes/60. The column (LM) is the average naked eye  
limiting magnitude, determined by the triangle star counts method. All  
following columns indicate the number of meteors for each shower  
observed.
------------------------

MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

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

STA___0___0___0___0___0___2___1___2_____+4.00
SPO___0___0___0___0___0___0___2___2_____+4.50
NTA___0___0___0___0___0___1___2___0_____+3.66
AND___1___0___0___0___0___0___0___0_____-2.00


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: 2.5 min (breaks) + 1.33 min (plotting) = 3.83 min

Breaks (UT): 3:00-01, 3:22-30, 4:23-24, 4:28 (30 sec)