(meteorobs) Re: zigzag meteors and more

[Norman W. McLeod III]

Marco's statement,

 >I do not believe in zig-zagging meteors at all.

I have to agree with in full.  After 44 years and about 90000 meteors, I 
have yet to see a meteor do a zigzag.  The explanations for what others 
think are zigzags seem quite reasonable and I have no others to add.  There 
have been mentions of  some Perseids in 1972 and 1996 with zigzags and 
fragmenting, but I saw both showers myself and missed out on these effects.

Split meteors are a different story, and I have seen a fair number of 
these.  They certainly add some variety to meteors.  I don't recall fast 
meteors doing splits, only slow or medium ones.  The detached piece/pieces 
are almost always orange and lag behind the main body.  In these cases I 
have never seen any deviation from the main line of flight, although it 
seems that some slight change of direction could occur.  I have seen a few 
slow meteors completely crumble into a ribbon of moving fragments.  Every 
one of those was orange, and some of them were surely bits of reentering 
manmade debris.

There is only one meteor in which I saw fragments leave at an angle.  It 
was on the morning of 1960 Nov 27 at 5:30 AM in Miami.  An 8-second meteor 
went from Gemini to near Corvus (likely a Taurid), peaking at -8m but 
changing constantly in brightness.  At the end it was  -5m, then it split 
into three orange  -2m fragments  -- one went straight, the others diverged 
one left and one right out of line about 15 degrees.  These fragments only 
traveled one final degree of arc.  I can never forget the exact time of 
such a spectacular meteor.

Curving meteors I have none to speak of, but will not dismiss their 
possibility.  A different matter,

 >A 'starrynights' post from "Rick M" <starman_962 at ...> reads:
 >>   I've seen meteors falling almost straight,or with a arch ...

sounds like a meteor appearing to rise and fall relative to the 
horizon.  If a series of apparent elevations in degrees of arc were made, 
there would indeed be increasing elevations followed by decreases.  But the 
true path is perfectly straight, and it is projected against the inside 
surface of a sphere which causes the illusion of arching.

There is a way to verify this illusion.  Go to a building with a sufficient 
length of overhanging roof to stand under, where the low sky and horizon 
can also be seen.  Move your vision from one side to the other along the 
horizon and note how the straight roof edge appears to rise and fall 
relative to the horizon.


The Texas fireball I would have immediately figured from general 
descriptions to be a meteor.  It was too fast, too bright, and off-color to 
be a reentry.  It was likely too bright and too early in July to be an 
Aquarid.  The public usually thinks of burning plane or space junk first, 
then the uninformed media with the help of non-meteor astronomers often 
jumps in with a shower identification even if the shower is impossible to 
see at the moment.

I haven't had time for observing meteors in a while, but plan on being out 
for the Perseids.  The late-night hours have been generally clear in SW 
Florida for a while which would be favorable for Perseid max.  We did see 
the transit of Venus on June 8 from right around the corner, where a road 
was aimed at the sun giving us a low horizon.  Using 11 X 80 binoculars to 
project a magnified image onto a white screen gave a fine view.


Marco's statement,

 >This is comparing apples with pears.

is a very sweet treat alternative to the customary comparison of apples and 
oranges.


The story of an unusual terrestrial fireball in a hospital operating room 
was posted to the meteorobs list on April 18, 2002.  Yet another type took 
place near Cape Canaveral just before the Fourth of July.  Two young men 
were throwing lit fireworks out the windows of a moving car.  A spark 
ignited all the rest of their stash which caused them to wreck.  The police 
could not get near the car for a number of minutes because fireballs kept 
coming out of the car windows.  When it was over one man was dead and the 
other was burned over most of his body.  These folks were afflicted by a 
serious collective case of the stupids.


Norman



Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society

Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod at peganet.com