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- Newsgroups: sci.astro
- Path: sparky!uunet!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!torn!newshost.uwo.ca!uwovax.uwo.ca!pbrown
- From: pbrown@uwovax.uwo.ca
- Subject: PERSEID STORM
- Organization: University of Western Ont, London
- Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 23:55:03 GMT
- Message-ID: <1992Aug16.195503.1@uwovax.uwo.ca>
- Sender: news@julian.uwo.ca (USENET News System)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: hydra.uwo.ca
- Lines: 28
-
- PERSEID STORM IN EASTERN EUROPE...
-
- Data from Hungarian meteor observers and several radio amateurs in the USA
- and Finland have revealed the strong possiblity that the expected strong
- return of the Perseids in 1992 *did* take place. The observations in question
- suggest 19-20 UT on Aug 11/12 as the time the outburst occurred. This is
- several hours earlier than predicted since the predicition was based on
- the assumption that the activity which took place over Japan in 1991 would
- recur again at the same position in the Earth's orbit, namely at 138.86
- (1950.0). As was pointed out by Marsden if the the shower recurred at
- precisely the node of P/Swift-Tuttle the storm would occur several
- hours before the 22-23 UT Aug 11/12 shortly after 19 UT, as seems to have
- happened. This is **very** strong evidence to suggest that P/Swift-Tuttle is
- very nearby and searches for the comet should certainly go into high gear.
- This outburst occurred at 138.74 (1950.0) and if it recurs again within
- a few tenths of degrees of this position then we can expect a nice meteor
- shower in 1993 on Aug 12 at about 1-2 UT. This means North America might
- catch some of the activity early in the evening and the moon will be only
- 4 days from new!!
- Since many details are still missing it is *imperative* that observers either
- radio or visual who have data in the interval 18-20 UT report it as soon as
- possible so a complete picture of what happened can be constructed.
- Further details can be found on IAUC 5586.
-
- *****************************************************************************
- Peter Brown peter@canlon.physics.uwo.ca
- North American Section - International Meteor Organization (IMO)
- *****************************************************************************
-