(meteorobs) Observation September 14/15 2012

[Pierre Martin]

Hello all,

Catching up on observing reports.  This session was held during a very enjoyable week-long camping trip at Sandbanks Provincial Park, located on the shore of Lake Ontario.  The weather was generally very good, allowing some clear skies every night of our stay.  This particular night was the clearest of the bunch.  A cold front had swept through a bit earlier that day, and the sky cleared up beautifully during the evening hours, making way for above-average transparency (4/5) for most of that night.  I enjoyed a quiet and comfortable observing session with the company of Ivan, Nicholas, Joe and Chris.  The sky was quite impressive with mag 6.7 stars visible and even a hint of the zodiacal band appearing very faintly and diffusely across the ecliptic.

My two-hour-plus session produced fairly low meteor rates; most notably near the beginning (prior to midnight) when over half an hour went by without a single meteor being seen.  I recall being tired, but I was still alert enough.  At the end of that first hour of observing, I decided to break and snooze for 2.5 hours so that I could focus my attention to the pre-dawn activity (and hopefully better rates).  I woke up and resumed at 2:45am EDT; by then, only Chris Thuemen was still up and observing.  The hour that followed was a little busier, with a good number of sporadics, South Taurids and even a few swift-moving September Perseids.  I was hoping to observe right up until dawn but I just couldn't stay awake anymore, so I called it quits.

The most interesting meteor was seen during one of my breaks. It was a mag +2 sporadic earthgrazer that swiftly covered about 60 degrees of the sky.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: September 14/15 2012
BEGIN: 03:12 UT (23:12 EDT) END: 8:10 UT (04:10 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -77.1286 West; Lat: 43.8461 North
Observing site: Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, plotting.
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OBSERVED SHOWERS:
Southern Taurids (STA) - 00:48 (012) +05
September Epsilon Perseids (SPE) - 03:38 (054) +40
Orionids (ORI) 04:48 (072) +03
September Lyncids (SLY) 07:50 (117) +56
September Iota Cassiopeiids (SIC) - 02:27 (037) +64
SPO (sporadics)
----------------------------------------------------------

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

PERIOD(UT)___FIELD_____Teff___F______LM____SPO_STA_SPE_ORI_SLY_SIC

03:12-04:14__334 +08___1.00___1.00___6.73___3___1___/___/___/___/
06:45-07:52__018 +07___1.00___1.00___6.75___8___5___3___0___0___1
07:52-08:10__035 +06___0.30___1.00___6.75___3___1___1___0___0___0

TOTALS:________________2.30_________________14__7___4___0___0___1  = 26

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
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MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

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

SPO___1___1___1___3___3___3___2_____+2.64
STA___0___0___1___1___2___3___0_____+3.00
SPE___0___0___0___1___1___1___1_____+3.50
SIC___0___1___0___0___0___0___0_____+0.00

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.
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SKY OBSCURED (FOV) (UT):  None

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

Dead time: 8.96 min (plots and breaks)

Breaks (UT): 3:39 (20 sec), 3:49 (20 sec), 4:14-6:45, 7:06-10



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