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(meteorobs) Observation August 17/18 2002
For the night of August 17/18, I had the pleasure to carpool with
Michael Vasseur for an observing trip to Baxter State Park in
northern Maine. The primary intention was to find a location that
would ensure ideal weather to observe the asteroid NY40 flyby. It
was a long 13 hours drive to our destination, but the skies alone
made it well worth it. While waiting for the Moon to go down, I
really enjoyed looking at the asteroid moving very rapidly among the
star fields through Michael's Meade ETX-125mm telescope. It was
certainly very impressive to see it go across many star patterns in
so little time. This definitely ranked among one of the most
fascinating events I've ever witnessed!
Following the moonset near 1am EDT (local time), I setup for some
meteor observing. Our observing site was overlooking a swamp with
wide open skies to the south. Thankfully, the mosquitoes were nearly
absent so it was quite enjoyable. A family of moose were present in
the water for most of the night, splashing around, and would
sometimes get within 50-100 feet from us. I took a few breaks to
have an even closer look in binoculars.
It didn't take long after moonset for the sky to get very dark. It
was quite impressive with magnitude +7.0 limit, and a very impressive
Milky Way. The sky was only slightly hazy near the horizons, perhaps
due to a few leftover cirrus clouds.
Observing almost 3 hours teff, I recorded 55 meteors. Most of the
activity were sporadic meteors, but the Perseids were still fairly
active with 10 seen. I was surprised by the amount of swift moving
meteors that came out of the apex sources on that night.
Did not see any fireballs, but one of the North Iota Aquarids seen at
5:46UT was quite memorable! It was mag +1 slow moving with a very
distinct blue color.
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: August 17/18 2002
BEGIN: 0435 UT (0035 EDT) END: 0750 UT (0350 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -68.960 West; Lat: 45.866 North Elevation: 1230 feet
City & Province: Baxter State Park, Maine (northern), U.S.A.
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder --> plotting method (showers)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________________radiant position
PER (Perseids)__________________________0340 +59
KCG (Kappa Cygnids)_____________________1904 +59
NDA (North Delta Aquarids)______________2244 -03
NIA (North Iota Aquarids - antihelion)__2240 -07
SDA (South Delta Aquarids)______________2336 -11
napx (sporadics from the north apex)____0340 +34
sapx (sporadics from the south apex)____0340 +04
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)__FIELD____Teff__LM____SPO_PER_KCG_NDA_NIA_SDA_napx_sapx
0435-0555___2114+10__1.00__6.77__12___3___0___0___2___0___4____1
0555-0655___2144+09__1.00__6.93___8___2___0___1___2___1___2____3
0655-0750___2241+10__0.85__6.87___6___5___0___0___1___0___1____1
TOTALS:______________2.85________26__10___0___1___5___1___7____5 = 55
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: 0(1) +1(1) +2(7) +3(7) +4(16) +5(5) +6(1) AVE: +3.45
PER 0(1) +1(0) +2(3) +3(1) +4(04) +5(1) +6(0) AVE: +3.0
NIA: 0(0) +1(1) +2(0) +3(3) +4(01) +5(0) +6(0) AVE: +2.80
NDA: 0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(0) +4(01) +5(0) +6(0) AVE: +4.0
SDA: 0(0) +1(0) +2(0) +3(1) +4(00) +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: 1.00
------------------------
Dead time:
- 24.24 minutes used for breaks.
- 2.65 minutes used for plots.
Breaks (UT): 0445(10sec), 0515-0535, 0731(45sec), 0734-0735,
0740-07:42, 0747(20sec)
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