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(meteorobs) Observation February 8/9 2002
Greetings,
Here is my meteor report for last night's session. Despite -16C plus
windchill, I was curious to see whether there might be any activity
from the suspected new radiants in Corona Borealis and Serpens Caput.
I was setup at a site located south-west of Ottawa. Due to the cold,
I had two layers of gloves which made plotting a bit tricky.
Thankfully, my warm sleeping bag and coffin kept me nice and toasty.
I also kept my tape recorder inside my glove to prevent the batteries
from freezing.
I watched for two hours TEFF (from 1:50am to 4am local time) under
crisp clear skies. The limiting magnitude averaged 6.32.
I saw a total of 18 meteors. By looking at my plots, it's quite
interesting to see that five meteors intersected with the two
suspected new radiants. Four meteors from the radiant in Corona
Borealis and one candidate from the other radiant in Serpens. They
were all rather faint except for one mag 0 that left a short wake.
No activity was seen from Virginids (antihelion). There was a very
nice swift-moving north apex sporadic that shot over 25 degrees high
up in the sky.
The highlight-of-the-night...
It was a large fragmenting sporadic fireball seen casually well
before I "signed-on". At exactly 12:35am local time, I was gabbing
with a few observers when a bright meteor immediately caught my eyes.
It plunged straight down in the western sky, and was brightening
steadily. Along it's medium speed path, four or five bright blue
fragments were dropping behind the meteor. It then exploded into a
magnitude -8 terminal flash that lit up the sky!! Wow!!!! Most of
the other observers reported seeing only shadows cast on the ground,
or the flash itself. The whole thing lasted just a second or so.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: February 8/9 2002
BEGIN: 0650 UT (0150 EST) END: 0900 UT (0400 EST)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76.0669 West; Lat: 45.0453 North Elevation:50m
City & Province: Franktown, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS: 3-letter code; radiant position
VIR (Virginids or antihelion source) 10:20 +09
AHY (Alpha Hydrids) 10:08 -19
npx (north apex source) 15:20 -03
spx (south apex source) 15:20 -33
SPO (random sporadics)
*** POSSIBLE RADIANTS LOCATED NEAR 15:32 (233) +30
(CORONA BOREALIS) AND NEAR 15:44 (236) +13 (SERPENS CAPUT) ***
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT) FIELD Teff LM SPO VIR AHY napx sapx
0650-0758 1328 +13 1.01 6.33 9 0 0 0 /
0758-0900 1328 +13 1.01 6.30 8 0 0 1 /
-----------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: 2.02 17 0 0 1
-----------------------------------------------------
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 1 0 1 4 6 6 +3.78
-----------------------------
TOTALS: 1 0 1 4 6 6
-----------------------------
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: 9 minutes (incl 7.5 min for plots)
Breaks (UT): 0654 (1min), 0659 (30sec)
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