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(meteorobs) Observation July 10/11 2002
On July 10/11, I enjoyed the first clear night at the North Bay star
Party (located about 4.5 hours drive west of Ottawa). Under
wide-open dark skies, I was setup with my "meteor observing coffin",
and had a productive night. The sky was mainly clear, but there was
lots of dew. My limiting magnitude started at 6.55 under crystal
clear skies but my limiting magnitude went down gradually due to a
few thin cirrus clouds moved in. I took occasional breaks from
meteor observing to enjoy deep sky viewing through many of the
telescopes that were setup at this star party.
Recording for 2.76 hours TEFF (effective time), I logged a total of
31 meteors. While this total was made up mostly of sporadic meteors,
there was minute activity detected from the July Pegasids, Alpha
Capricornids and Sagittarids. The first and final hours were
especially active.
There were a few highlights worth mentioning...
At 3:58UT, an impressive Alpha Capricornid meteor slowly crawled up a
very long path (about 35 degrees). It flared twice on its path as
bright as mag +1 and had a distinct yellow tint!
At 4:41UT, a first magnitude blue sporadic shot a long 40 degrees
path across Cygnus and Hercules.
At 5:45UT, a magnitude -1 sporadic went by in Lacerta, followed by a
much fainter 5th mag meteor just a few seconds later.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: July 10/11 2002
BEGIN: 0345 UT (2345 EDT) END: 0810 UT (0410 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -79.368 West; Lat: 46.081 North Elevation: 50m
City & Province: Powassan, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________________radiant position
ACY (Alpha Cygnids)_____________________2012 +47
TOP (Theta Ophiuchids)__________________1716 -10
SAG (Sagittarids antihelion source)_____2024 -18
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)________________1932 -14
JPG (July Pegasids)_____________________2256 +16
napx (sporadics from the north apex)____0124 +24
sapx (sporadics from the south apex)____0124 -06
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)__FIELD____Teff__LM____SPO_ACY_JPG_CAP_SAG_TOP_napx_sapx
0345-0452___1905+13__1.07__6.55__11__0___0___1___0___0____0____0
0533-0621___2114+10__0.76__6.46__7___0___0___0___0___0____1____0
0713-0810___2304+15__0.93__6.28__6___0___1___0___1___0____2____1
TOTALS:______________2.76________24__0___1___1___1___0____3____1 = 31
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
SPO: -1(1) +0(1) +1(3) +2(3) +3(5) +4(6) +5(8) +6(1) AVE: +3.32
JPG: -1(0) +0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(0) +4(1) +5(0) +6(0) AVE: +4.0
CAP: -1(0) +0(0) +1(1) +2(0) +3(0) +4(0) +5(0) +6(0) AVE: +1.0
SAG: -1(0) +0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(1) +4(0) +5(0) +6(0) AVE: +3.0
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 (last column) for showers.
------------------------
SKY OBSCURED:
None
Corresponding F value for this session is 1.00
------------------------
Dead time:
- 6.4 min used for plots.
Breaks (UT): 0452-0533, 0621-0713
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