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(meteorobs) Observation June 7, 2002 (casual viewing)
For the morning of Friday June 7, it ended up clearing a bit too late
at night to consider a trek to a dark site. I decided that there just
wasn't much time left before morning dawn would start interfering.
Instead, I woke up at 3:15am (local time EST) and decided to stay put
and look at the sky from my place in Orleans, located just east of
Ottawa. I went into my small backyard at with a lawn chair but was
flooded with neighbours lights and streetlights more than usual, so
that was a no-go. I then went back inside, and decided to simply
watch through a window facing the northern quadrant of the sky. I
estimated that I could see about +4.0 mag even with more glaring
streetlights preventing me from dark adapting at all. I could just
(very barely) make out the stars of Ursa Minor. My field of view
through the window allowed my eyes to scan the north up to about 50
degrees high. I kept my Gnomonic plotting charts handy beside me in
case I would see a suspect Arietid meteor. The morning twilight came
very quickly, but the sky was very clear and transparent. Although I
did not detect any Arietids earthgrazers, I did see some interesting
tumbling satellites on polar orbits. Perhaps with a better field of
view I would have had more luck. I kept watching until the brightest
stars disappeared near 4:30am.
Clear skies,
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
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