A few nights later, I went out again to Bootland to enjoy an early morning session. I rushed to leave home because I slept right through my midnight alarm clock, so I quickly grabbed what I needed and left so that I could still catch a good 2-3 hours of darkness before dawn.
When I arrived at Bootland, I realized I had left my meteor bag at home! … in the street actually! This bag had all my accessories and binoculars. Fortunately, a family member was able to retrieve it for me, but it meant that I had no tape recorder or note pad. I considered aborting the meteor watch and just view the sky casually, or come back home. Instead, I improvised a way to do voice memos on my iPhone without having to look down at the screen and ruin my dark adaptation. It was tricky and a bit of a pain but it seemed to work okay so I gave it a go. Without my talking clock, this also meant that I had to look down at my watch to note the exact time for each meteor, a process that took about 5 seconds for each meteor.
So I signed on at 1:40am and watched for almost 3 hours until morning twilight. The sky was nice and clear with average transparency. The temperature very comfortable at +14C, with just a few mosquitoes, calm night and no dew. One iridium satellite of flare of mag -5 that lit up the sky a bit – cool!
I saw 66 meteors, with the South Delta Aquariids still going strong (with 18 of them), followed closely by the Perseids (with 14 seen). The majority of the Perseids were all seen in the second hour, and then they produced almost nothing during the final 40 minutes. The brightest meteor was a mag -1 CAP seen at 3:03am very far from the radiant, down in the east. It was yellow and produced a terminal flash.
August 1/2 2016, 05:40-08:25 UT (01:40-04:25 EDT)
Location: Bootland Farm (Stewartville), Ontario, Canada
(Long: -76 deg 29′; Lat: 45 deg 23′)
Observed showers:
July gamma Draconids (GDR) – 18:44 (281) +50
Alpha Capricornids (CAP) – 20:28 (307) -09
Anthelion (ANT) – 21:20 (320) -14
South Delta Aquariids (SDA) -22:52 (343) -16
Piscis Austrinids (PAU) – 23:04 (346) -30
July Pegasids (JPE) -00:20 (005) +16
Perseids (PER) – 02:04 (031) +55
Eta Eridanids (ERI) – 02:24 (036) -14
beta Perseids (BPE) – 02:35 (039) +39
05:40-06:42 UT (01:40-02:42 EDT); clear; 3/5 trans; F 1.00; LM 6.53; facing S50 deg; teff 1.00 hr
SDA: eight: +1; +2; +3(3); +4(2); +5
ANT: five: +2(2); +3; +5(2)
PER: three: +1; +3; +4
CAP: two: +4(2)
GDR: one: +1
Sporadics: seven: +1(2); +3; +4(2); +5(2)
Total meteors: Twenty-six
06:42-07:45 UT (02:42-03:45 EDT); clear; 4/5 trans; F 1.00; LM 6.55; facing S50 deg; teff 1.01 hr
PER: ten: +1; +2(4); +4(2); +5(3)
SDA: six: +3; +4(3); +5(2)
ERI: three: +2; +3(2)
CAP: one: -1
JPE: one: +5
Sporadics: eight: +2; +3(3); +4(4)
Total meteors: Twenty-nine
07:45-08:25 UT (03:45-04:25 EDT); clear; 4/5 trans; F 1.00; LM 6.47; facing S50 deg; teff 0.65 hr
SDA: four: +3(3); +5
ANT: one: +4
PER: one: +3
BPE: one: +5
Sporadics: four: +2(2); +3; +4
Total meteors: Eleven
Clear skies,
Pierre Martin
Ottawa, Ontario
