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(meteorobs) July 1, 2003 Meteor Observations from California

The weather has been perfect as of late, but I have had a difficult time
getting out of bed to observe. This morning I had no excuse as I did not
work. I had planned to start at 12:30am local daylight time (7:30 UT) but I
arrived a few minutes late. The sky was clear all the way from the coast to
the observing site. With all the light pollution visible the western half of
the sky was very poor. I faced due east toward the much better half of the
sky. Activity was a bit more erratic than experienced during my last few
sessions. I would often go 10-15 minutes without a meteor. The meteors seen
were also fainter on average compared to my last few sessions.  The
antihelion radiant, which was to my far right or behind me the entire
session, produced four shower members. Two possible members of the Tau
Aquarids were plotted. As for the apex, only two meteors came from the
northern area. There were some very swift meteors seen tonight. Two of them
reached an angular velocity of 30 degrees per second. The highlight of the
session was a sporadic -3 magnitude fireball from the northeast that shot
low into the southeastern sky in Cetus. In stark contrast to my session on
June 26, I only saw one satellite this morning, which was the Hubble Space
Telescope. During that previous session I was seeing a satellite nearly
every five minutes.

July 1, 2003

0747-0850 UT    1.00    6.69    2  ANT    1  TAQ    1  NPX     3  SPO     7
TOTAL

0850-0954 UT    1.00    6.65    0  ANT    1  TAQ    1  NPX     6  SPO     8
TOTAL

0954-1130 UT    1.51    6.45    2  ANT    0  TAQ    0  NPX   11  SPO   13
TOTAL

TOTALS:            3.51    6.58    4  ANT    2  TAQ    2  NPX   20 SPO    28
TOTAL

The first column gives the period watched stated in Universal Time (UT)
which is PDT + 7 hours. The second column gives the percent of that
particular hour actually spent observing the sky. The third column gives the
average limiting magnitude estimated during each period. The last several
columns list the activity seen during each period. I was facing east at an
altitude of 50 degrees during the entire session. No breaks were taken. ANT
= Antihelions (Sagittarids), TAQ =  Tau Aquarids, NPX = Northern Apex, and
SPO = Sporadics (random activity).

Location: Deerhorn Valley 116 45' 21" W 32 41' 21" N ELE = 667 m

Bortle Scale Estimate: Class 3  (Rural Sky)

Beginning Temperature/Relative Humidity: 62 F (17 C) 19%
Ending         "         "        "                        57 F (14 C) 16%

MAGNITUDES:

ANT:   0 (0) +1 (1) +2 (1) +3 (1) +4 (1) +5 (0) +6 (0)          AVE: +2.50
TAQ:   0 (0) +1 (1) +2 (0) +3 (1) +4 (0) +5 (0) +6 (0)          AVE: +2.00
NPX:   0 (0) +1 (0) +2 (1) +3 (0) +4 (0) +5 (1) +6 (0)          AVE: +3.50
SPO:  -3 (1)   0 (3) +1 (0) +2 (4) +3 (3) +4 (6) +5 (3)          AVE: +2.65

Bob Lunsford
San Diego, CA USA


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