(meteorobs) July 30/31 2014 SDA observations from North Florida

[Paul Jones]

Greetings again meteor fans,
      I translated my notes and here is a more detailed report on my two
hour SDA/PER observation session this morning:

Observer: Paul Jones, Location: 5 miles SW of St. Augustine, Florida (Lat.
- 29.81 N, Long. - 81.35 W), Elevation: 30 feet,  Sky Conditions: LM 6.5,
Clear, 15% sky obstruction (trees), Observer direction: Facing south.

0700 - 0800 UT (0300 - 0400 EDT)  1.0 Teff, no breaks

SDA - 7
ANT - 1
PER - 4
PAU - 1
CAP - 1
SCA - 1
SPO - 10
Total meteors: 25


0800 - 0900 UT (0400 - 0500 EDT) 1.0 Teff no breaks

SDA - 11
PER - 8
PAU - 1
CAP - 1
SPO - 12
Total meteors: 33

Mags:

SDA:  0 (1), +1 (1), +2 (2), +3 (7), +4 (5), +5 (2)
PER:  -1 (2), 0 (1), +1 (1), +2 (1), +3 (4), +4 (1). +5 (2)
PAU: +1 (1), +2 (1)
CAP : 0 (1), +2 (1)
SCA: +2 (1)
SPO: -1 (2), +1 (2), +2 (3), +3 (4). +4 (6), +5 (5)

Trains:
SDA: 3 of 18 meteors left trains
PER: 6 of 12 meteors left trains
PAU: 2 of 2 meteors left trains
CAP: 1 of 2 meteors left trains
SCA: 0 of 1 meteor left trains
SPO: 5 of 22 meteors left trains

First hour narrative:
     Most of this hour was rather slow, with an even sprinkling of SDAs,
PERs and SPOs.  About mid-way through the hour, the first of two lovely
PAUs was seen.  This beauty left a long-pathed train covering about 30
degrees of sky high in the east.  Activity picked up towards the end of the
hour, with an amazing spurt of bright sporadics all hitting within about
five minutes of each other.  The first one was a slow moving, -1 "kappa
Cygnid" type meteor seen going south in western Cygnus. Then another
bright swift sporadic flashed across the southern sky going west.  And
finally, the best meteor of the watch: an amazing yellowish orange, slow
moving, -1 earthgrazing sporadic meteor almost split the sky in half!  It
covered over 100 degrees of sky and fragmented, sparked and tumbled wildly
along its path.  I had it in view for over five seconds total.  It was
awesome!

Second hour narrative:
     The SDAs had a great spurt at the start of the second hour.  I saw
five of the eleven in the first fifteen minutes of the hour.  Then, the
PERs kicked in and got active for a while.  The second PAU I saw was even
better than the first one.  It covered over fifty degrees of sky high in
the east and fragmented and sparked just like the earlier sporadic I had
seen.  It's color was a faint yellowish to me.  A couple of nice bright
PERs rounded out the hour.

All in all it was a SUPERB session!  The SDAs tended to be faint, short and
few left trains.  The PERs seemed pretty much as I would have expected: a
mixed bag, some faint, some bright.  50% left trains.  No PER spurting was
noticed as they were all pretty much even spread out.  The sporadics and
the PAUs really stole the show from the SDAs and the PERs this morning!  I
was greatly aided by the sharp, clear skies too, as many meteors of all
types were quite faint and short.  I probably would not have seen half of
the ones I did in lesser quality skies.

Hope to be out again in the morning, Paul in North Florida
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