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(meteorobs) August 21, 2001 Meteor Observations From California

After a long spell I finally made it out to watch some of the post
Perseid activity. The marine layer was fairly thick allowing some decent
skies in the mountains. There were some high clouds low in the west that
seemed to glow from the lights below, even though there was another
cloud deck below. I decided to give Chris Crawford's Zen method a try
tonight. Not wishing to wear earplugs I was subject to crickets constant
chirping and they seemed deafening loud. I must have gotten use to them
by the 3rd hour as I don't recall being bothered by them at all after
that. Keeping my eye trained on the field and not individual stars was
not as difficult as I imagined. The problem was that there were 6th
magnitude star everywhere seeming to say "here I am, stare at me!" There
was just no getting around it. I also tried to keep my head and body
perfectly still as much as possible. I experienced some of the Troxler
effect in the beginning as the field would turn gray. I found myself
constantly blinking and moving my eyes slightly to relieve this effect.
It was troublesome at the start but after the 2nd hour there was no
problem. Finally tuning out mental distractions was tough but not
impossible. I had good and bad streaks when trying this. 

The results? Perhaps a few more fainter meteors and maybe a 10 percent
increase in the total activity. Was it worth it? Hard telling, I didn't
miss the music but the constant eye blinking early in the session drove
me nuts. Speaking of that the mosquitoes were present all night long
which really were a distraction. I'm not sure if it was a swarm or one
mosquito coming back for more but by the end of the night I was ready to
hunt him down with a sledge hammer. The Zen method certainly would not
work in Florida this time of year!

The Perseids were still the champion shower producing 10 meteors during
the 5 hour session. The next active shower was the North Iota Aquarids
with half that total. The two apex radiants were surprising inactive. I
cannot recall a session in which there were long gaps of inactivity and
then suddenly 2 or 3 meteors within 5 seconds. It was crazy and needless
to say my plotting percentage was well below average tonight.

The highlight of the night occurred early when a nice, long distinctly
yellow 0 magnitude Kappa Cygnid crawled high to my right through Sagitta
and Delphinus. No fireballs were seen tonight.


August 21, 2001


0710-0810 UT   0.94  6.71    2 KCG 1 NDA 2 NIA 3 SPO             8 TOTAL

0810-0910 UT   0.92  6.55    3 PER 12 SPO                       15 TOTAL

0910-1010 UT   0.88  6.43    2 NDA 3 NIA 2 NPX 3 PER 9 SPO      19 TOTAL

1010-1110 UT   0.93  6.44    2 PER 1 SPX 9 SPO                  12 TOTAL

1110-1210 UT   0.93  6.13    2 PER 1 SDA 1 SPX 4 SPO             8 TOTAL

TOTALS:        4.60  6.45    2 KCG 3 NDA 5 NIA 2 NPX 10 PER 
                             1 SDA 2 SPX 37 SPO                 62 TOTAL


The first column gives the period watched stated in Universal Time (UT)
which is PDT + 7 hours. The second column gives the percent of that
particular hour actually spent observing the sky. Time was lost for
plotting and data entry tonight. The third column gives the average
limiting magnitude estimated during each period. The last several
columns list the activity seen during each period. I was facing south at
an altitude of 60 degrees during the entire session. No breaks were
taken. KCG = Kappa Cygnids, NDA = North Delta Aquarids, NIA = North Iota
Aquarids, NPX = Northern Apex, PER = Perseids, SDA = South Delta
Aquarids, SPX = Southern Apex, and SPO = Sporadics (random activity).

Location: Pine Valley Viewpoint 116 29'43" W  32 49'49" N  ELE = 1300 m

Bortle Scale Estimate:  Class 3 (Rural Sky)

Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity:   60 F (16 C)  30%
Ending         "         "         "       55 F (13 C)  30%

MAGNITUDES:  

KCG:       0 (1) +1 (0) +2 (0) +3 (0) +4 (0) +5 (1) AVERAGE: +2.50
NDA:       0 (0) +1 (0) +2 (0) +3 (0) +4 (2) +5 (1) AVERAGE: +4.33
NIA:       0 (0) +1 (1) +2 (0) +3 (2) +4 (1) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +3.40
NPX:       0 (1) +1 (1) +2 (1) +3 (2) +4 (0) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +0.50
PER:       0 (1) +1 (1) +2 (1) +3 (5) +4 (2) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +2.60
SDA:       0 (0) +1 (0) +2 (0) +3 (1) +4 (0) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +3.00
SPX:       0 (1) +1 (0) +2 (0) +3 (0) +4 (1) +5 (0) AVERAGE: +2.00
SPO:      -2 (1) -1 (2) +1 (2) +2 (4) +3 (13)+4 (9) 
                                      +5 (5) +6 (1) AVERAGE: +3.03


Bob Lunsford
San Diego, CA USA
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