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(meteorobs) Observation June 21/22 2003
On the morning of Sunday June 21/22, I was lucky enough to meteor
observe under the dark skies of La Verendrye in Quebec (about 2.5
hours drive north of Ottawa). There were a lot of other amateur
astronomers busy with telescopes along the abandoned airstrip. The
skies were very clear except that a layer of smoke from forest fires
in north-west Ontario had reduced the transparency. The limiting
magnitude was still around 6.6-6.7 at times. The Milky Way was quite
spectacular near the zenith with a lot of structure visible. This
was a pleasant mild night too.
In two hours TEFF I recorded 16 meteors. The first hour alone
provided 11 meteors thanks to the still moonless dark skies. The
second hour's sky quality decreased dramatically due to the Moon, and
so did the meteors. There were a few long lulls of inactivity as a
result.
The highlights included a very slow moving 2nd mag sporadic in
Sagittarius at 1:21am EDT. Another memorable meteor was at 2:35am
EDT when a zero mag blue sporadic from the north apex shot by high
overhead, leaving behind a one second glowing train.
Clear skies,
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: June 21/22 2003
BEGIN: 0500 UT (0100 EST) END: 0705 UT (0305 EST)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -76.29' West; Lat: 46.59' North Elevation: 400m
City & Province: Reserve Faunique LaVerendrye, Quebec, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder - plotting method
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________________radiant position
ANT (antihelion source - Sagittarids)__________1900 -23
TOP (Theta Ophiuchids)_________________________1608 -12
TAQ (Tau Aquarids)_____________________________2220 -15
napx (sporadics from the north apex)___________0000 +15
sapx (sporadics from the south apex)___________0000 -15
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)__FIELD____Teff__LM____SPO_ANT_TOP_TAQ_napx_sapx
0500-0604__1905+13__1.00__6.56___9___2___0___0____0___/
0604-0705__2033+11__1.00__6.30___4___0___0___0____1___0
TOTALS:_____________2.00________13___2___0___0____1___0 = 16
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