(meteorobs) Re: 2004 June Bootids

[Robert McNaught]

Sergey,
There is no question about the great importance of the Russian studies
of the Leonid and other shower dust trails.  I hope this has always been
fully acknowledged and David would never suggest otherwise.  Note however
that there are precedents to even these these Russian studies and these must
also be acknowledged.

Please also acknowledge the novelties that David and I introduced
in the study of Leonid storms

1) A geometrical correction to the time of maximum allowing observation
   and theory to be matched to better than 10 minutes.

2) Detailed comparison of historical data with theory, showing no
   false positives or negatives.  (This doesn't mean everything was
   correct, just that we found no contradictions).

Others have extended dust trail studies to showers much less active than
the Leonid storms that were the focus of our initial work.  With this, the
success has been mixed.  But, yes, you are correct in stressing that this
work must continue.  Even if nothing is seen, this is a useful result to
modify the variant models.

BTW, I looked at scociological issues around these excellent Russian
Leonids studies to understand why they were overlooked in the west.  Also
how predictions and commercial interests were intertwined around the
recent storms.  Sadly, politics and ego can really interfere with the
process and dissemination of science.

Cheers, Rob