(meteorobs) Observation August 4/5 2013

Pierre Martin pmartin at teksavvy.com
Wed Aug 7 23:54:10 EDT 2013


Hello all,

Here's my report for Sunday evening / Monday morning's session at the new North Frontenac Dark Sky Site (NFDSS); about two hours drive west of Ottawa near Sharbot Lake. 

Wow!  The site is great in that it is situated in a newly implemented 1,160 square kilometres Dark Sky Preserve, which happens to be a relatively undeveloped general area that has the darkest skies in southern Ontario.  This means that the township will have rules that outdoor lights must be justified, or be properly shielded.  The site has a large concrete platform, electrical outlets, a parking lot and a clean washroom.  The pad is even arranged to show true north.  The township hopes that this free access site will help boost tourism in the area; more specifically "astro tourism".

When I got there near sunset, I was greeted by several observers already with scopes.  Soon, several more people arrived (some coming from as far as Mississauga and Montreal), and we found ourselves with about a dozen setups on the pad.  The horizons are wide open in every direction except for a low tree line to the north so it is pretty awesome.  The site is next to a main road, so some very occasional lights from passing cars are possible but I found this to be not much of a problem especially with my field of view facing the other way.  The only other light source is from the house that is immediately next to the site... The light is not too bad, but I hope that the owners there will install some kind of shield to cut down the glare.  Doing so would set a nice example for the Dark Sky Preserve.

What a productive night!  I spent all of the evening on the pad with my 12.5" Portaball, enjoying and revisiting some of the summer's finest deep sky.  The sky was beautiful with the summer Milky Way in full view, sky transparency steady at 3/5 (average quality, mag 6.8 near zenith) and seeing between 3 and 4 out of 5.  I had my scope on the "Ken Whitnall EQ platform" which continues to work flawlessly even after all these years.  I especially enjoyed the bright Ghost of Jupiter and Blinking planetary nebulas, the dark lanes of the Trifid, the delicate Veil, the gorgeous M5 globular, the massive M22 globular, and the gorgeous double cluster and Andromeda galaxy (looked amazing through the 30mm Pentax XW - such a rich and contrasty field of view).  I also very much enjoyed having a glimpse at Uranus (such a nice colour), the Swan Nebula and the Ink Spot dark nebula through Jim's wonderful 18" Obsession dob.  I saw many meteors even without trying, several early Perseids tracing long paths to the south.  And the ISS did both an evening and an early morning pass.  It was amazing to hand track it at medium magnification with my dob, and see all the solar arrays and modules!

I settled down for formal meteor observing just after midnight and kept watch for over four hours, right up until morning dawn.  I saw a total of 108 meteors.  The Perseids were the most evident shower activity, equally as strong as the sporadic background.  The brightest was a beautiful mag -3 Perseid that flared yellow-white and left a 2 sec train.  The last hour before dawn was as expected the most productive for the Perseids.  The Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids turned out to be pretty active too, even though they were a few days past their peak.  The most memorable meteor was actually a sporadic seen at 2:32am; a mag -3 very vivid BLUE-GREEN streak that shot up from the east and left a train persisting for 3 seconds.  I always love this time of the year for observing due to the wide variety of meteor activity seen.

All in all, a nice night and I can't wait to get out again near the Perseids peak :)


August 4/5 2013, 04:20-08:25 UT (00:20-04:25 EDT)
Location: Plevna, Ontario, Canada 
(Long: -76.935; Lat: 44.916)

Observed showers:
Kappa Cygnids (KCG) - 18:40 (280) +44
Alpha Capricornids (CAP) - 20:32 (308) -09
Antihelions (ANT) - 21:36 (324) -12
Delta Aquariids (SDA) - 23:04 (346) -15
Pisces Austrinids (PAU) - 23:12 (348) -29
Perseids (PER) - 01:40 (035) +55
Eta Eridanids (ERI) - 02:40 (040) -14
Alpha Triangulids (ATR) - 02:36 (039) +41


Interval 1
04:20-05:20 UT; clear; F 1.00; LM 6.75; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.00 hr.
PER: seven: -3; -1; +1(2); +4; +5(2)
SDA: five: 0; +1(2); +2; +3
CAP: three: +1; +4(2)
ANT: one: +5
KCG: one: +4
Sporadics: eleven: +2(2); +3(2); +4(2); +5(4); +6
Total meteors: twenty eight

Interval 2 
05:20-06:21 UT; clear; F 1.00; LM 6.75; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.01 hr.; Break: 5:25 UT (30 sec)
PER: five: -2(2); +1; +3; +4
SDA: five: 0; +3; +4(3)
CAP: three: -1; 0; +4
ANT: three: +4; +5(2)
KCG: one: +3
Sporadics: six: 0; +3; +4(3); +5
Total meteors: twenty three

Interval 3 
06:21-07:21 UT; clear; F 1.00; LM 6.75; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.00 hr.
PER: ten: -1; 0(2); +2(3); +3; +4(2); +5
SDA: four: +2(2); +3; +4
CAP: one: +2
ANT: one: +3
PAU: one: +4
ATR: one: +3
Sporadics: six: -3; +4(2); +5(3)
Total meteors: twenty four

Interval 4
07:21-08:25 UT; clear; F 1.00; LM 6.75; facing SSE50 deg; teff 1.06 hr.
PER: fourteen: -2; 0; +1; +2(4); +3(2); +4(3); +5(2)
SDA: six: +4(5); +5
Sporadics: thirteen: +1(2); +2; +3(2); +4(2); +5(6)
Total meteors: thirty three


Clear skies,

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario





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