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(meteorobs) Some Quadrantids over Ottawa, Ontario (Jan 2/3)...
This past night (the Jan 2/3 Quadrantid maximum), eastern Ontario was
fighting low, slow-moving thin clouds for the whole night. It looked
to me as if it would be a wash-out but despite the odds, we managed a
partial success...
After staying awake all night having my eyes glued on weather maps
and overcast skies, I eventually decided that enough was enough. I
had to do something at 3:00 AM. I figured that trying was better than
doing nothing. Despite not seeing a single star out my window, the
weather images insisted that there were a couple of tiny sucker holes
moving just west of us. I loaded up my car with meteor and warm
winter gear and drove out 30km south of Ottawa to join Cathy Hall at
a Baxter site. On the way there, I noticed clouds beginning to break
up and some bright stars visible. This got my hopes up a bit. To our
delight, the site was plowed so we had a nice spot to setup with good
horizons and no interfering light sources. Temperature was really
pleasant with no wind and a very balmy -11C (for Canadian standards
:-)
The bad news... as soon as we arrived, the sky was suddenly 100%
overcast all over and there was nothing we could do. So we sat in
Cathy's truck, reclined the seats, chatted and drank coffee to pass
the time. A quick glance out the windshield once in a while showed
nothing but grey skies.
Just as astronomical night was about to end near 6am EST, we took
another glance up and noticed a few bright stars! Indeed, some of the
clouds were broken slightly and had micro sucker-holes in between
them. Constellations were not visible in their complete shapes. At
best we estimated brief periods of pathetic 3% clear skies! Sure
enough, we were both crazy enough to attempt observing the final hour
under such hopeless conditions. Actually, I'm glad we did, because
the Quads were definitely making a presence. A period of 13 minutes
under deep twilight had 5 Quads! The tiny sucker holes were just
enough for us to barely locate the radiant position and make the
proper associations.
This is as much as Cathy and I can report, so I don't expect this to
be much useful considering our near impossible observing conditions.
However, this small sample seemed to indicate that the Quads were
strong and healthy near the predicted peak time.
11:23-11:35 UT (6:23-6:35 EST)
Skies cloudy between 97% and 100%
LM through clear patches briefly reached 5.8 (but typically no more
than 3.0). Increasingly bright morning twilight.
Quadrantids: 5
Sporadics and others: none
These included a nice magn 0, a pair of magn +2 and the others were fainter.
I was surprised to see any at all...
Pierre
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