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(meteorobs) Observation July 19/20 2001
Here are my meteor reports for the second half of July. The weather
over eastern Ontario has been relatively good for a few good nights
until the Delta Aquarids peak...
I spent the July 20 weekend at the North Bay Star Party (about 4
hours drive west of Ottawa). The location was excellent with pristine
skies and flat horizons. For July 19/20, we were lucky enough to get
very dry air and excellent transparency.
With a few dozens telescopes setup, including a 20" Obsession just
next to my spot, it was hard to resist the deep sky. However, I
couldn't pass the chance to do at least a bit of meteor observing
under magnitude 7.1 skies. I settled into my meteor "coffin", and
wrapped myself with aluminium tarps to keep the dew out. The coffin
and strange sounds coming from my talking clock appeared to attract
lots of curious people.
I managed to get 3 and a half hours of effective viewing time. The
meteor activity did not disappoint. There were sporadics coming from
from all over the place, and the faint ones were easy to spot against
the dark sky background. Besides sporadics, the next strongest
sources were South Delta Aquarids and Perseids. The highlight was a
rare PAU of magnitude 0 that was seen crawling its way up in the
south. Total was 67 recorded meteors.
What a truly wonderful night.
Pierre Martin
DATE: July 19/20 2001
BEGIN: 3:54 UT (23:54 EDT) END: 8:00 UT (4:00 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -79.368 West; Lat: 46.081 North Elevation:100m
City & Province: Powassan, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS: 3-letter code; radiant position
NDA (N. Delta Aquarids) 21h05 -10
SDA (S. Delta Aquarids) 22h17 -17
SAG (Sagittarids) 19h55 -18
CAP (Alpha Capricornids) 19h40 -15
PAU (Pisces Austrinids) 22h06 -33
PER (Perseids) 01h00 +52
ACY (Alpha Cygnids) 20h22 +48
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT) FIELD Teff F LM SPO SDA PER SAG CAP NDA PAU
ACY napx sapx
3:54-4:57 20h46 +16 1.00 1.00 7.10 15 1 1 2 1 0 1 0 1 0
4:57-6:33 21h37 +19 1.01 " 7.10 9 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0
6:33-7:33 21h44 +09 0.99 " 6.98 17 1 2 0 1 1 0 0 2 0
7:33-8:00 23h04 +15 0.45 6.57 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: 3.45 48 4 4 2 2 2 1
1 3 0 = 67
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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 spent
not 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 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 AVERAGE
SPO 2 2 8 12 13 13 1 +3.47
PER 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 +2.5
SDA 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 +3.75
SAG 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 +5.0
CAP 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 +3.0
NDA 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 +3.0
PAU 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
ACY 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 +2.0
---------------------------------
TOTALS: 3 2 12 17 18 13 2
---------------------------------
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): 39 minutes (4
minutes for plotting meteors)
Breaks: 5:13 (30sec), 5:37-6:11, 6:24 (30sec)
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