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(meteorobs) Observation October 21/22 2001
>To: meteorobs@atmob.org, oaog@egroups.com
The weather in Eastern Ontario did not cooperate too much with this
year's Orionids near their peak. Every clear night I was hoping to
be out recording meteors were hampered by unstable, unpredictable
weather patterns. Fortunately, an unexpected tiny sucker hole
developped on Monday morning October 22. It was 3:30am local time,
and I decided to check it out from my backyard. The sky appeared at
least 90% clear which surprised me. Since my meteor gear was still
packed in the car from the past night's failed attempt, I decided to
scramble. As quickly as possible, I drove out to Casselman for a
last ditch attempt to see some Orionids. According to a satellite
image, heading east would be in the direction the clear break was
heading. The 35 minutes drive to the dark sky site would still allow
at least an hour of watching before morning twilight.
From there, things went a bit less well. Nearly the entire drive to
the site was through a very thick ground fog with bad visibility.
Once I arrived in Casselman, considerable scattered clouds in the
south forced me to wait before I could do a sign-on. The northern
horizon had a nice aurora which was probably a leftover from the
strong display visible earlier that night. Finally at 4:53 EDT, it
cleared just barely enough to start watching. The rest of the
session still had an average of 20% clouds in my field, and
relatively poor transparency (LM=5.75 skies).
On the positive side, despite the poor skies I recorded 15 meteors
all in less than one hour! The Orionids were the main activity with
seven members seen. Had the skies been a lot better, it would
obviously have been quite a decent show. The highlight was an
Orionid seen almost directly on the radiant. It was a yellow-orange
zero magnitude flash, with very little motion, and leaving behind a
short wake.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: October 21/22 2001
BEGIN: 8:53 UT (4:53 EDT) END: 9:55 UT (5:55 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
ORI (Orionids) 06h20 +16
EGE (Epsilon Geminids) 07h00 +27
DAU (Delta Aurigids) 07h04 +50
NTA (north Taurids) 02h45 +16
STA (south Taurids) 02h30 +10
LMI (Leo Minorids) 10h48 +37
napx (north apex) 07h44 +36
sapx (south apex) 07h44 +06
SPO (sporadics) -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT) FIELD Teff F LM SPO ORI EGE LMI NTA STA DAU napx sapx
8:53-9:55 05h59 +37 0.90 1.25 5.75 3 7 2 1 0 0 0 0 2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: 0.90 3 7 2 1 0 0 0 0 2 = 15
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
(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 AVERAGE
SPO 0 1 0 1 3 0 +3.20
ORI 1 1 1 1 2 1 +2.71
EGE 0 0 2 0 0 0 +2.0
LMI 0 0 1 0 0 0 +2.0
-----------------------------
TOTALS: 1 2 4 2 4 1
-----------------------------
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.
meteors, and the average for showers.
SKY OBSCURED:
None
------------------------
Dead time: 8 minutes (for plots)
Breaks: 9:15-9:23 UT
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