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(meteorobs) Observation May 5/6 2001



Following an evening public astronomy session I attended this past 
Saturday evening, I decided to head out to Casselman for some early 
morning meteor observing. The nearly Full Moon was a serious nuisance 
for dark sky sites, but the Eta Aquarids meteor shower was only a day 
past its maximum so I was curious to see the activity under a clear 
sky.

I never expect to see Eta Aquarids in numerous numbers from 45 
degrees latitude, since the radiant never has time to reach a 
suitable altitude before morning twilight. However, seeing just a few 
few Aquarids is neat, since they often produce long earthgrazing 
paths!

I observed the last hour until dawn from 7:30UT to 8:40UT. I faced 
south-east and my field of view was near zenith to get the darkest 
area in the sky. The Moon was low in the west, and I had my car 
behind me to hide its glare. Despite the lunar interference, the sky 
transparency was surprisingly good. I could occasionally glimpse a 
5.7 magnitude star. My average limit magnitude for the session was 
5.32.

In 1.13 hours teff (effective observing time), I logged 5 meteors 
which included 3 Eta Aquarids and 2 sporadics. Not much, but the 
quality of the meteors more than made up for the small numbers... The 
very first meteor, an Eta Aquarid was seen only one minute after I 
signed "on". It was a long 20 degrees magn +2 streak. As morning 
twilight began in the east, a couple of very nice meteors appeared, 
and made me yell "ohhh!" all alone. At 4:10 EDT, a gorgeous magn -1 
vivid blue Aquarid shot like a bullet through Cygnus. It left a 1 sec 
train. Then, at 4:29 EDT, a fabulous orange/pink magn -1 Aquarid shot 
toward Cygnus with a path close to 20 degrees. The high velocity 
almost gave it the illusion of being "closer", and I jumped in my 
chair. I got both plotted.

I officially "signed off" at 4:40 EDT as the sky was becoming too 
bright for useful observations. For fun, I decided to keep watching 
the zenith just in case even though I could only make out a small 
handful of trhe brightest stars... Well, much to my delight another 
Aquarid flashed at the zenith at exactly 4:58 EDT. It was about 
magnitude +0.5 and yellow. It was neat to see a meteor going through 
a deep blue sky.

A couple of iridium satellites were seen at 4:02 and 4:09 EDT. They 
appeared both at the same spot 10 degrees over the east, one at magn 
-3 and the other at -1. On the way back home, I was treated to the 
nearly Full Moon setting over the 417... nice touch!

Standard report will be forwarded to NAMN. Summary below.

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario



DATE: May 5/6 2001
BEGIN: 7:30 UT (3:30 EDT)  END: 8:40 UT (4:40 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -75.063 West; Lat: 45.269 North  Elevation:100m
City & Province: Casselman, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS: 3-letter code;    		 	radiant position
              	ETA (Eta Aquarids)			337 -2
		WCA (May Capricornids)			21h00 -21
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen;  / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)   FIELD   	Teff   F     LM    SPO ETA WCA
7:30-8:40    18h54 +36	1.13  1.00  5.32    2   3   0   = 5
--------------------------------------------------------

MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:

SHOWER -1   0  +1  +2  +3  +4	AVERAGE

SPO     0   0   0   0   0   2  	+4.0
ETA     2   0   0   1   0   0	 0.0
-----------------------------
TOTALS: 2   0   0   1   0   2
-----------------------------

SKY OBSCURED:
None
------------------------

Dead time: 2.33 min (plots)
Breaks: none
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes: Field of view was temporarily EAST at 60deg high, from 7:30 to 7:40 UT.



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