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(meteorobs) Observation July 11/12 2002
For the second night on a row, July 11/12 was another productive
night of meteor observing at the North Bay Star Party. The
transparency was also considerably better than the previous night,
and allowed a spectacular view of the summer Milky Way down to the
southern horizon. The bulge of the Milky Way in Ophiuchus was
visible quite easily. It was very enjoyable to be observing with
many faint stars visible. My limiting magnitude started at over 6.7,
but decreased only slightly during the second and third hours due to
a few thin cirrus clouds that came through. This night was also less
humid.
In almost 3 hours of recording, I logged a total of 34 meteors. This
included 5 Sagittarids, 2 Alpha Cygnids, 1 Alpha Capricornid, 1 July
Pegasid, 4 meteors from the north apex, and 21 random sporadics.
The highlights...
The first meteor at 3:39UT was a faint July Pegasid that shot a long
40 degrees in a split second! The path was quite impressive for such
a faint streak.
At 6:32UT, a bright magnitude -1 Alpha Capricornid going between
Aquarius and Pisces. This one appeared almost pure white.
At 6:56UT, a 25 degrees long Sagittarid of magnitude -1. Appeared white. Nice.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: July 11/12 2002
BEGIN: 0325 UT (2325 EDT) END: 0750 UT (0350 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
SAG (Sagittarids antihelion source)_____2024 -18
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)________________1932 -14
JPG (July Pegasids)_____________________2256 +16
NDA (North Delta Aquarids)______________2104 -10
SDA (South Delta Aquarids)______________2156 -19
PAU (Pisces Austrinids)_________________2200 -34
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_CAP_SAG_JPG_NDA_SDA_PAU_napx_sapx
0325-0430___1855+06__1.04__6.71__11__1___0___2___0___0___0___0____0____0
0555-0656___2114+10__0.99__6.49__4___1___1___0___0___0___0___0____2____0
0656-0750___2241+10__0.88__6.47__6___0___0___3___1___0___0___0____2____0
TOTALS:______________2.91________21__2___1___5___1___0___0___0____4____0 = 34
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(0) +0(1) +1(0) +2(8) +3(5) +4(5) +5(6) AVE: +3.24
SAG: -1(1) +0(0) +1(1) +2(0) +3(1) +4(2) +5(0) AVE: +2.2
ACY: -1(0) +0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(1) +4(1) +5(0) AVE: +3.5
CAP: -1(1) +0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(0) +4(0) +5(0) AVE: -1.0
JPG: -1(0) +0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(1) +4(0) +5(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:
- 5.33 min used for plots.
Breaks (UT): 0430-0555
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