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(meteorobs) Aug 9/10 Meteor Observations From California
I managed to watch for 5 hours this morning under excellent skies. I
decided to face due east to catch any activity from Cetus as well as the
Perseids. I ended up counting 108 meteors which included 6 KCG's, 9
NDA's, 1 NIA, 2 PAU's, 43 PER's, 2 SDA's and finally 45 SPO's. I plotted
any possible Kappa Cygnids, any activity from Cetus, and any difficult
to assign Aquarids.
The Kappa Cygnids were quite active early. There was no possibility that
any of these KCG's could have been Alpha Caps. All Kappa Cygnids were
faint with the most impressive one crawling down the middle of Aquarius
traveling 15 degrees in 3 seconds. There were also several candidates
tossed out into the sporadic bin due to their angular velocities being
too high. It was interesting that Norman McLeod did not see any of these
this morning as they really stood apart due to their slow velocity.
Only 4 of the 108 meteors came from Cetus so this data was inconclusive.
The North Delta Aquarids were active throughout the session but always
on the faint side.
The 2 South Delta Aquarids seen were nearly identical as they were both
yellow, 2nd magnitude and crossing the "Square" of Pegasus.
The Perseids seemed a bit weak tonight but there were several
brilliantly colored Perseids with nice trains. The most impressive
Perseid had a deep orange hue. All of the other Perseids that presented
colors were orange or yellow.
The lone North Iota Aquarid could have been an Alpha Cap as their
radiants are nearly identical at this time. The angular velocity
estimation for that area of the sky proved too swift to be an Alpha Cap
so it was assigned NIA.
It was a somewhat hectic session as my cassette recorder was acting up.
It turned out I had mistakenly grabbed an old microphone that caused the
tape to continue recording while it was suppose to be paused. No data
was lost but it took much longer than usual to retrieve the data from
tape. I also felt a bit rusty as it has been 3 weeks since my last
session it was difficult to obtain a nice rhythm. Taping and plotting
together does cause problems. It also does not help when it takes 4 or 5
attempts to obtain an limiting magnitude estimate due to the high meteor
activity. There were times when 2-3 meteors were seen within a few
seconds and also times when 10 minutes went by without recording a
single event. Hopefully all will be smoother tonight!
Finally it was downright cold and wet as the ending temperature was only
33 with the humidity in the 80's. It seemed more like Geminid weather
(DEC) rather than mid August!
August 9/10 1999
0700-0800 UT 1.00 6.64 2 KCG 7 PER 1 SDA 6 SPO 16 TOTAL
0800-0900 UT 0.97 6.63 3 KCG 2 NDA 7 PER 1 SDA 7 SPO 20 TOTAL
0900-1000 UT 0.98 6.64 3 NDA 1 PAU 10 PER 10 SPO 24 TOTAL
1000-1100 UT 0.98 6.58 3 NDA 1 NIA 1 PAU 7 PER 13 SPO 25 TOTAL
1100-1200 UT 0.98 6.40 1 KCG 1 NDA 12 PER 9 SPO 23 TOTAL
TOTALS: 4.91 6.58 6 KCG 9 NDA 1 NIA 2 PAU 43 PER 2 SDA 45 SPO
108 TOTAL
The first column gives the period watched stated in Universal Time (UT)
which is PDT + 7 hours. The second column gives the percent of that
particular hour actually spent observing the sky. Time was lost for
plotting and data entry tonight. The third column gives the average
limiting magnitude estimated during each period with a minimum of 4
estimates using at least 2 and preferably 3 different sky areas close to
my center of view. The last several columns list the activity seen
during each period.
I ws facing due east at an altitude of 70 degrees during the entire
session. No breaks were taken during this session. KCG = Kappa Cygnids,
NDA = North Delta Aquarids, NIA = North Iota Aquarids, PAU = Pisces
Austrinids, PER = Perseids, SDA = South Delta Aquarids, and SPO =
Sporadic (random activity).
Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity: 38 F (3 C) 64%
Ending " " " 33 F (1 C) 82%
MAGNITUDES:
KCG: +3 (1) +4 (2) +5 (3) AVERAGE: +4.33
NDA: +3 (4) +4 (5) AVERAGE: +3.56
NIA: +3 (1) AVERAGE: +3.00
PAU: +3 (1) +5 (1) AVERAGE: +4.00
PER: -1 (1) 0 (3) +1 (4) +2 (10) +3 (18) +4 (6) +5 (1) AVERAGE: +2.47
SDA: +2 (2) AVERAGE: +2.00
SPO: -2 (1) 0 (2) +1 (3) +2 (9) +3 (13) +4 (11) +5 (5) +6 (1)
AVERAGE: +2.96
Bob Lunsford
San Diego, CA USA
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