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(meteorobs) Observation June 14/15 2001
On June 14/15, I observed almost 3 hours teff at Casselman. Total
that night was 22 meteors (15 sporadics, 3 Sagittarids, 2 Xi
Draconids and 2 June Lyrids). Skies were a bit better tonight despite
the day's heat and humidity with my visual magnitude reaching 6.33.
The highlights-of-the-night...
The very best meteor highlight happened before I was "signed-on". At
3:05UT, I was viewing with Pete's 11" SCT and then I took a casual
glance in the southern sky. Suddenly, a ***very slow*** meteor
starting crawling its way low in Sagittarius. It brightened up to
magnitude +1 with a vivid orange colour, kept going for a dramatic 6
seconds and then it burst into a bunch of tiny fragments. The
fragments were so small that it almost gave the meteor a nebulous
appearance when it fragmented.
The second highlight was at 6:32UT with a memorable burst of 4
meteors within one minute. It started with a dramatic magn +3
sporadic flaring in and out **5 TIMES** on a long 50 degrees path! A
few seconds later, a Xi Draconid goes down in the south, followed by
a nice magn +1 yellow June Lyrid, and as I was plotting that one, a
faint Sagittarid went by on a fairly long path.
At 4:33UT, I saw a brief flashing object but not sure if it was
meteor or satellite.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: June 14/15 2001
BEGIN: 3:15 UT (23:15 EDT) END: 6:50 UT (2:50 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) 18h30 -22
JLY (June Lyrids) 18h30 +35
XDR (Xi Draconids) 18h30 +55
TOP (Theta Ophiuchids) 16h50 -17
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT) FIELD Teff F LM SPO SAG XDR JLY TOP
3:15-4:16 16h25 +14 1.00 1.00 6.29 4 1 1 0 0
4:16-4:58 17h35 +12 0.69 " 6.33 5 0 0 1 0
5:39-6:50 18h59 +15 1.17 " 6.24 6 2 1 1 0
--------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: 2.86 15 3 2 2 0 = 22
--------------------------------------------------------------
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 0 1 3 7 4 +3.93
SAG 0 1 0 2 0 +3.33
XDR 0 0 2 0 0 +3.0
JLY 1 1 0 0 0 +1.5
-------------------------
TOTALS: 1 3 5 9 4
-------------------------
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): 2.9 minutes for
plotting meteors
Breaks: None
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