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(meteorobs) Observation June 12/13 2001
On June 12/13, I managed to observe for over 2 hours at Casselman.
The sky was better with an average limiting magnitude of 6.32. Denis
Legault and Pete Everson were setup with their scopes and did visual
(14" dob and 11" SCT).
I plotted low activity from all active sources for a total of 16
meteors. The only nice meteor worth noting was a long 20 degrees mag
+1 yellow sporadic at 5:34UT.
It was satellites galore night!!! Early in the night, a neat pass by
the ISS. It went nearly overhead and then quickly faded into the
earth's shadow. I saw a pair of bright (unexpected) iridium flares
including a magn -6 and another at -4. Perhaps teh most curious was a
geostationary satellite in Sagittarius. It matched the brightness of
the other stars in the teapot, so for a minute I was scratching my
head and puzzled I asked to the other observers around me... "What's
that extra star in the Teapot?". After a few minutes it had a moved
by only a degree or so, and eventually faded from view.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: June 12/13 2001
BEGIN: 2:55 UT (22:55 EDT) END: 5:40 UT (1:40 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
SAG (Sagittarids) 18h00 -23
JLY (June Lyrids) 18h15 +35
XDR (Xi Draconids) 18h15 +54
TOP (Theta Ophiuchids) 16h30 -16
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT) FIELD Teff F LM SPO SAG XDR JLY TOP
2:55-4:14 16h02 +22 1.00 1.00 6.30 4 0 0 0 1
4:14-5:40 18h01 +21 1.29 " 6.35 7 2 1 1 0
--------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: 2.29 11 2 1 1 1 = 16
--------------------------------------------------------------
The first column (Period UT) refers to observing periods broken down
as close as possible to one hour of true observing, in Universal
Time. The second column (Field) is the area in in the sky where I
centered my field of view. The third column (TEFF) represents
effective observing time (corrected for breaks or any time I did not
spent looking at the sky). One hour = 1.00 teff. The fourth column
(F) is for sky obstructions (clouds, buildings, ect). No obstructions
= 1.00 but any obstructions will make this number slightly higher.
The 5th column (LM) is the average naked eye limitimg magnitude,
determined by triangle star counts. All following columns indicate
the number of meteors for each shower observed.
MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:
SHOWER +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 AVERAGE
SPO 1 3 3 3 1 +3.0
SAG 0 0 0 1 1 +4.5
XDR 0 0 0 0 1 +5.0
JLY 0 1 0 0 0 +2.0
TOP 0 1 0 0 0 +2.0
-------------------------
TOTALS: 1 5 3 4 3
-------------------------
Note: Magnitude scale is to determine the brightness of sky objects.
Magnitude -8 is comparable to a quarter moon, magnitude -4 with the
planet Venus, magnitude -1 with the brightest star Sirius, magnitude
+2 to +3 with most average naked eye stars and magnitude +6 to +7 are
the faintest stars the naked eye can see under typical dark
conditions. A meteor of at least magnitude -3 is considered a
fireball. The above table contains the magnitudes from all observed
meteors, and the average for showers.
SKY OBSCURED:
None
------------------------
Dead time (amount of time spent not looking up): 27.74 minutes total
including 1.41 minutes for plotting meteors
Breaks: 3:20 (1min), 3:47 to 4:05, 4:57 to 5:00, 5:07 to 5:11
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