(meteorobs) Observation May 5/6 2012

[Pierre Martin]

Hello all,

Any rumours about my demise have been greatly exaggerated ;)  I am still around, and active observing.  An unusually busy summer has delayed my observing reports.  I still enjoy sharing my field experiences, so I'm finally catching up ;)

Here's one going all the way back to the Eta Aquarids.  Got out for an hour of observing before dawn, despite the bright (and large) gibbous moon lurking low in the west.  Thankfully, the sky transparency was decent enough to reveal a trace of Milky Way.  

Not too surprisingly, activity was low with only three ETA's and one sporadic.  But an absolutely spectacular Eta Aquariid seen at 3:26am (EDT) more than made up for the small numbers.  It was a mag -3 earthgrazer, very well seen very high up.  It shot well over 60 degrees from Delphinus to Ophiuchus, with a deep golden/yellow colour and a long train.  It is still the year's most impressive meteor for me!

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: May 5/6 2012
BEGIN: 06:50 UT (02:50 EDT) END: 8:00 UT (04:00 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, cord align
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OBSERVED SHOWERS:
Antihelion (ANT) - 15:52 (238) -20
Eta Aquariids (ETA) - 22:36 (339) -01
SPO (sporadics)
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OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)___FIELD_____Teff___F______LM____SPO_ETA_ANT

06:50-08:00__298 +40___1.17___1.00___5.50___1___3___0 = 4

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

ETA___1___0___0___0___0___1___0___1_____+1.00
SPO___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___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.
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SKY OBSCURED (FOV) (UT):  None

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Dead time: None

Breaks (UT): None

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