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(meteorobs) Observation October 23/24 2003
After a mainly cloudy night from the Frozen Banana star party near
North Bay, the skies finally cleared on the morning of October 24 at
4:30am EDT! I rushed to get my sleeping bag out of the tent, organize
my tape recorder and talking clock and settle down in my lawn chair to
get busy with meteor observing. From the confort of my lawn chair, I
signed on at 4:40am EDT. The skies were wonderful with very good
transparency (reduced a bit during the second hour due to twilight).
My limiting magnitude reached 6.6, and the Winter Milky Way and
constellations were awesome! Orion appeared almost buried in a sea of
faint stars. It felt good to be under such a nice dark sky. In the
background, there was soft music playing which enhanced the experience.
The meteor activity was surprisingly productive, with an astonishing
77 meteors logged over the next two hours tEFF (effective time)! By
far, the most active source was the Orionids which exceeded my
expectations with as many as 19 of them for the first hour, and then 16
for the second. I didn't quite expect those numbers a few days after
the maximum, wow! The Epsilon Geminids were quite active the first
hour and then fell silent. I was also quite pleased to see low but
definite activity coming from the Leo Minorid radiant in the form of
very swift, trained (almost Leonid-like) meteors. Finally, the
sporadics rates were steady for the entire duration, including good
numbers of very swift streaks coming out of the apex.
The meteor highlights that come to mind included:
- 0848 UT mag 2 sporadic that flared 3x on a 15deg path.
- 0928 UT mag -2 slow moving Taurid that went on a persistent 25 deg
path!!
- 0955 UT, three Orionids streaked by within just 5 seconds!
- 0957 UT, a highly forshortened mag 2 Orionid appeared beside the
radiant.
- 1013 UT, a vivid golden colored very slow moving mag 0 sporadic in
the south.
- 1030 UT, a sporadic and an Orionid went by within a split second
apart.
- 1032 UT, a very swift yellow Leo Minorid leaving behind a two seconds
train.
It was a great experience also on this morning to witness the Zodiacal
Light. I could trace the cone-shaped light at up to 80 degrees along
the ecliptic! I don't remember seeing this much of it before. In
fact, it was bright enough to justify switching my field of view more
to the south to get a "darker" part of the sky. It seemed to really
peak in intensity at about 6am EDT. At 6:50am EDT, I signed off from
meteor recording since the skies were becoming too bright to see
anything other than the brightest stars and planets.
It was a brief but enjoyable time under a nice clear and dark sky!
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
DATE: October 23/24 2003
BEGIN: 0840 UT (0440 EDT) END: 1050 UT (0650 EDT)
OBSERVER: Pierre Martin (MARPI)
LOCATION: Long: -79.368 West; Lat: 46.081 North Elevation: 50m
City & Province: Powassan, Ontario, CANADA
RECORDING METHOD: talking clock/tape recorder, cord align
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
ORI (Orionids)_________________________________0616 +16 ANT (North
and South Taurids combined)_________0224 +15
DAU (Delta Aurigids)___________________________0652 +50
EGE (Epsilon Geminids)_________________________0708 +27
LMI (Leo Minorids)_____________________________1048 +37
NPX (sporadics from the north apex)____________0744 +36
SPX (sporadics from the south apex)____________0744 +06
SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen; / = shower not observed
PERIOD(UT)__FIELD___Teff__F_____LM_____ORI_DAU_EGE_LMI_ANT_NPX_SPX_SPO
0840-0948__0637+06__1.00__1.00__6.56___19___0___4___2___1___5___2___10
0948-1050__0620+14__0.96__1.00__6.16___16___0___0___2___1___3___3___9
TOTALS:_____________1.96_______________35___0___4___4___2___8___5___19
= 77
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). The fourth column (F) is a value for obstructions in the field of
view such as clouds (1.00 = 100% clear skies). The next column (LM) is
the average naked eye limiting magnitude, determined by triangle star
counts. All following columns indicate the number of meteors for each
shower observed.
------------------------
MAGNITUDE DISTRIBUTIONS:
SHOWER
____-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5__+6_____AVE
SPO__0___0___1___0___2__11__10___7___1____+3.68
ORI__0___0___0___2___7___7___5__12___2____+3.68
LMI__0___0___1___1___1___1___0___0___0____+1.50
EGE__0___0___0___0___1___0___2___1___0____+3.75
ANT__1___0___0___0___0___0___1___0___0____+1.00
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
------------------------
Dead time: 12.5 min. (all for breaks)
Breaks (UT): 0844-45, 0904-11, 1005 (30sec), 1008-10, 1011-12, 1019-20
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