(meteorobs) Observation August 4/5 2011

[Pierre Martin]

Here's my session from last Friday morning, August 5.  I was a little  
too tired to drive to a remote site so I went to the Pendleton  
Airport, which is just a 35 minutes drive from my house.  The sky was  
very hazy/murky near the horizons, but actually quite good overhead.   
It was also warm at 17C and rather dewy and humid.

Signing on at 12:20am EDT, I observed for over 3 hours, getting 72  
meteors.  The rates were quite decent in the first and final hours,  
but the second hour was strangely absent of sporadic and Perseid  
activity.  I am sure that I was fully awake too!  It's a good thing  
that the Delta Aquarids were active during this time, otherwise it  
would have been a long lull.
The August Piscid radiant was surprisingly active towards the end of  
the night.

The best meteor was at 12:48am EDT when a mag -2 yellow-white Perseid  
shot 30 degrees through the rich Milky Way in Cygnus, leaving a four  
sec train behind.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: August 4/5 2011
BEGIN: 04:20 UT (00:20 EDT) END: 07:30 UT (03:30 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -75.092 West; Lat: 45.568 North
Observing site: Pendleton Airport, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting
----------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________radiant position
PER (Perseids)__________________________________01:58 +54
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)________________________20:22 -10
ANT (Antihelions)_______________________________21:20 -14
SDA (South Delta Aquarids)______________________22:45 -16
PAU (Pisces Austrinids)_________________________22:56 -29
AUP (August Piscids - IMO video database)_______00:30 +18
SPO (sporadics)
----------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)___FIELD_____Teff___LM____SPO_PER_SDA_CAP_ANT_PAU_AUP

04:20-05:20__315 +10___1.00___6.29__10___8___1___1___2___0___2
05:20-06:20__331 +11___1.00___6.38___2___1___6___1___0___0___0
06:20-07:30__348 +08___1.10___6.37__14___8___5___0___5___1___5

TOTALS:________________3.10_________26__17__12___2___7___1___7  = 72


Notes: The first column (Period UT) refers to observing periods, in  
Universal Time. The second column (Field) is the area in in the sky  
where I centered my field of view. The third column (TEFF) Teff is  
simply the total time during the observing session spent actually  
watching the sky. Breaks and/or dead time are not included in the  
reported Teff. It is reported in decimal format such that a 60 minute  
observing session would be reported as Teff = 1.00. The column (LM) is  
the average naked eye limiting magnitude seen.  All following columns  
indicate the number of meteors for each shower observed.  For more  
info, see: http://www.namnmeteors.org/guidechap2.html
------------------------

MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

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

SPO___0___0___1___4___8___3___5___5_____+2.84
PER___1___2___2___2___4___2___3___1_____+1.71
SDA___0___0___0___2___2___0___5___3_____+3.41
ANT___0___0___0___1___1___1___3___1_____+3.29
AUP___0___0___0___0___3___1___2___1_____+3.14
CAP___0___0___0___0___1___1___0___0_____+2.50
PAU___0___0___0___0___1___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: 4 min (break)

Breaks (UT): 6:21-25

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