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(meteorobs) Observation July 5/6 2003
I made it out for a few hours of meteor observing this morning, at
the Casselman site. The sky was absolutely crystal clear with very
good transparency following a cold front. The limiting magnitude of
6.5 was surprising and unusually good for this site. I suspect that
this was due to the cooler dry air and a bank of low clouds near the
horizons helped block some distant city glows. Every once in a while
we could see a flash of lightning - probably a very distant storm.
Up above, the Milky Way was displaying a lot of faint structure like
I've rarely seen from this site!
Meteor activity was constant, and better than expected for this time
of year! Before I signed on in the late evening, I would already see
quite a few sporadics including a slow moving mag -3 or -4 that
fragmented along its path. It's too bad I didn't see this meteor
until the last moment.
With almost 3 hours TEFF (effective observing time), I logged 35
meteors. The first hour alone had as many as 12 sporadics! A lot
were on the faint side, and usually short brief streaks. The second
hour had slightly less sporadics but a few shower members
(Sagittarid, Capricornid and a July Pegasid) appeared. The last hour
had another flurry of sporadics, plus one from the north apex source.
A couple of highlights... The Alpha Capricornid at 6:08UT (2:08 EDT)
was well seen in my field of view. It was a splendid 1st magnitude
vivid blue, and very slow moving meteor in Aquila.
Another nice meteor that comes to mind was the -3 mag sporadic at
6:17UT that had a medium speed, with a wake. Quite brief.
Clear skies,
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: July 5/6 2003
BEGIN: 0420 UT (0020 EST) END: 0725 UT (0325 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 - plotting method
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_______________________________________radiant position
ANT (antihelion source - Sagittarids)__________1952 -20
TOP (Theta Ophiuchids)_________________________1712 -10
CAP (Alpha Capricornids)_______________________1904 -16
JPE (July Pegasids)____________________________2236 +14
napx (sporadics from the north apex)___________0052 +21
sapx (sporadics from the south apex)___________0052 -09
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)__FIELD___Teff__LM_____SPO_ANT_TOP_CAP_JPE_napx_sapx
0420-0527__1934+07__1.01__6.50___12__0___0___0___0___0____0
0527-0628__2033+11__1.00__6.50___07__1___0___1___1___0____0
0628-0725__2111+12__0.94__6.42___11__1___0___0___0___1____0
TOTALS:_____________2.95_________30__2___0___1___1___1____0 = 35
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
______-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5_____AVE
SPO____1___0___0___1___0___5__11__10___3____+3.06
ANT____0___0___0___0___0___0___1___1___0____+3.50
CAP____0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0___0____+1.00
JPE____0___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0____+3.00
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: 8.82 minutes (3.32 min for plots)
Breaks (UT): 4:23 (30sec), 4:59-5:04
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