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(meteorobs) Observation June 2/3 2003
On Monday night June 2/3, I went to Casselman again for meteor
observations. Despite a promising forecast, when I arrived to the
site I was slightly disappointed by another hazy-looking sky.
However, as the night went on the atmosphere improved until it was
considerably better than the previous night. The summer Milky Way
eventually displayed a lot of details down into the south. My
limiting magnitude averaged 6.24. It was a rather cool June night
with a low of only 4C, so I was glad to have my warm sleeping bag. I
signed-on for a two-hour session starting just after local midnight.
Once again, the activity was better than I expected for this time of
the year. I recorded 15 meteors.
The first hour again had the most shower activity with a pair of
slow-moving antihelions and one definite very slow Omega Scorpid that
was well seen, and plotted! Only 4 sporadics were seen.
The second hour had slightly more sporadics, but only member each of
the antihelions and Omega Scorpids.
The highlight of the night was at 1:34am EDT when a spectacular
sporadic earthgrazer appeared from high in the south going toward the
south-west. It was not really that bright (magnitude +3) but was
very persistent with a 60 degrees long path. It was medium speed.
It would appear to flare in and out a few times and displayed a faint
orangish color.
Clear skies,
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: June 2/3 2003
BEGIN: 0412 UT (0012 EST) END: 0625 UT (0225 EST)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -75.063 West; Lat: 45.269 North Elevation: 50m
City & Province: Casselman, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder - cord align method
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________________radiant position
ANT (antihelion source - Sagittarids)__________1740 -23
OSC (Omega Scorpids)___________________________1540 -20
napx (sporadics from the north apex)___________2240 +08
sapx (sporadics from the south apex)___________2240 -22
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)__FIELD____Teff__LM____SPO_ANT_OSC_napx_sapx
0412-0514__1632+11__1.00__6.24___4___2___1____/___/
0514-0625__1735+12__1.16__6.25___6___1___1____/___/
TOTALS:_____________2.16________10___3___2____/___/ = 15
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
______-1__+0__+1__+2__+3__+4_____AVE
SPO____0___0___0___3___2___5____+3.20
ANT____1___0___1___1___0___0____+0.66
OSC____0___0___0___2___0___0____+2.0
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 (FOV): None
Corresponding F value: 1.00 for this session.
------------------------
Dead time: 2.83 minutes
Breaks (UT): 5:23 (30sec)
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