(meteorobs) Observation August 18/19 2012

[Pierre Martin]

I made a last-minute decision to spend the night of August 18/19 at the Irvine Lake airstrip (near Bon Echo Park) with the company of several observers.  It was well worth it, with beautiful pristine mag 7.0 dark skies.  The summer Milky Way was bright and gorgeous, and the gegenshein was faintly visible late at night.  The sky transparency improved as the night went on.  The night was very quiet, except for the occasional soft chatter of observers and the pre-dawn coyotes.

Prior to settling down for a long night of meteor observing, I enjoyed some spectacular views through Jim Sofia's 18" dob.  It was difficult to pull back from the eyepiece at times!

I surprised myself for not snoozing once at night, even though I was tired earlier in the day.  I think the awe and excitement of being out under those skies kept my energy level up :)

I formally observed meteors for five hours, and saw 103 meteors.  Sporadics were quite active with 64 seen.  Small numbers of Perseids were seen almost every hour, even though it was well past the peak night.  Brightest meteor was a slow mag -3 sporadic at 3:11am (local time).

I was quite surprised to see some noticeable activity from the unnamed radiants ("circlet" of Pisces, Gamma Andromedae) that Bob Lunsford described in his Meteor Activity Outlook.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: August 18/19 2012
BEGIN: 03:00 UT (23:00 EDT) END: 8:08 UT (04:08 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -77.2627 West; Lat: 45.0297 North
Observing site: Silver Lake Provincial Park, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, cord align.
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OBSERVED SHOWERS:
Kappa Cygnids (KCG) - 18:28 (277) +59
Antihelions (ANT) - 22:36 (339) -07
P - 23:27 (352) +04
Delta Aquariids (SDA) - 23:54 (359) -11
A - 02:04 (031) +41
Perseids (PER) - 03:47 (057) +59
Alpha Triangulids (ATR) - 03:44 (056) +38
SPO (sporadics)
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OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)___FIELD_____Teff___F______LM____SPO_PER_KCG_ANT_SDA_ATR__P___A

03:00-04:03__299 +06___1.00___1.00___6.80___9___3___3___5___0___0___1___0
04:03-05:03__318 +10___1.00___1.00___6.75___13__0___0___2___0___0___0___1
05:03-06:04__334 +14___1.00___1.00___6.83___14__3___0___2___0___0___1___1
06:04-07:08__347 +09___1.00___1.00___6.95___14__1___2___1___1___1___1___1
07:08-08:08__010 +07___1.00___1.00___7.00___14__5___1___1___0___0___0___2

TOTALS:________________5.00_________________64__12__6___11__1___1___3___5  = 103


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__+5__+6______AVE

SPO___1___1___0___3___4___7__10__18__15___5_____+3.44
PER___0___0___0___1___2___3___2___3___1___0_____+2.58
ANT___0___0___0___1___2___2___2___3___1___0_____+2.64
KCG___0___0___1___2___1___0___1___1___0___0_____+1.17
A_____0___0___0___0___0___0___0___3___2___0_____+4.40
P_____0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___2___0_____+4.66
SDA___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0___0_____+2.00
ATR___0___0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0_____+4.00


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: 8 min (breaks)

Breaks (UT): 3:52-55, 5:15-16, 6:05-09