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(meteorobs) Observation November 21/22 2003



Hi all,

Here's my detailed report for my observations for Friday November 21/22 
(better late than never! ;) ...

Even before I left home, I knew it was going to be a very humid night.  
Already, the car's windows were quite fogged up and along the way there 
I hit several thick fog patches which slowed me down a bit.  Upon 
arriving at the quarry, the skies were really poor with thick fog in 
all the directions except for the zenith.  What made things even worse 
were the lights on the neighboring barns had been left on, and produced 
quite a bad glow to the south-west horizon.

I signed on for meteors at 0530UT (0030EST), and over the course of 
four hours (effective time), activity kept me fairly busy as I recorded 
as many as 63 meteors.  Even though the Leonids were a few nights after 
the peak, they still provided a trickle of meteors with 10 of them 
seen.  There was a few fairly bright trained Leonids (two mag -3 and 
one of mag -1 while I was signed-on).  The Alpha Monorecotids had 
definite low level activity up until the last hour.  The Taurids 
complex provided some steady weak rates.  Altogether, it made for 
enjoyable meteor rates despite all the fog that rendered the horizons 
quite useless.

The highlights of the night...

During a break, my eyes caught a bright mag -3 Leonid that crossed the 
zenith.  It was about 20 degrees long with a wake.  Shortly after, a 
swift 40 degrees long sporadic earthgrazer appeared!

- Right before the beginning of dawn, the zodiacal light was quite a 
striking sight into the eastern sky.  It appeared as a huge diffuse 
cone extending almost 60 degrees up into Leo!

- After signing-off from meteor observing at 5:45am, I was really 
bagged so took a 30 minutes nap in my lawn chair.  When I woke up in 
deep morning twilight, I found a really tiny sliver of the Moon just 
coming up in the east.  Was only 3% illuminated Moon!  Nice!!

Meteor data follows below...

Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario


DATE: November 21/22 2003
BEGIN: 0530 UT (0030 EST)  END: 1045 UT (0545 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
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVED SHOWERS:_____________________________________radiant position
		NTA (North Taurids)____________________________0425 +24		STA (South 
Taurids)____________________________0415 +16
		AMO (Alpha Monocerotids)_______________________0752 +00
		DER (Delta Eridanids)__________________________0416 +00
		LEO (Leonids)__________________________________1020 +20
		NPX (sporadics from the north apex)____________1004 +26
		SPX (sporadics from the south apex)____________1004 -04
		SPO (random sporadics)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVING PERIODS: 0 = none seen;  / = shower not observed

PERIOD(UT)__FIELD___Teff__F_____LM____AMO_LEO_NTA_STA_DER_NPX_SPX_SPO

0530-0639__0555+19__1.09__1.00__6.25___2___0___1___0___0___2___0___5
0734-0838__0746+18__1.01__1.00__6.05___2___2___3___0___0___1___1___6
0838-0945__0844+18__1.01__1.11__6.08___3___4___0___0___0___2___2___10
0945-1045__0952+26__1.00__1.00__6.05___0___4___2___1___0___3___1___6

TOTALS:_____________4.11_______________7__10___6___1___0___8___4___27 = 
63

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
____-3__-2__-1___0__+1__+2__+3__+4__+5_____AVE

AMO__0___0___0___0___0___3___2___2___0____+2.86
LEO__1___0___1___0___0___2___3___2___1____+2.20
NTA__0___0___0___0___0___2___3___1___0____+2.83
STA__0___0___0___0___1___0___0___0___0____+1.00
SPO__0___1___0___1___2___4__10__13___8____+3.33

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): thin clouds (10%) from UT 0832-0930

------------------------

Dead time: 13.57 min. (for breaks and plots)

Breaks (UT): 0542-0543, 0639-0734, 0902 (30sec), 0927-0933

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