(meteorobs) The Aurigids in 2007: Jenniskens expects a, ZHR of 400+

[Skywayinc at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/21/06 11:15:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
esko.lyytinen at jippii.fi writes:

<< To calculate the trail position in a given moment, typically needs the 
 parent comet orbit and timing well known back to the ejection.
 
 However, in the case of long period, the one revolution "makes it shape" 
 practically while coming back (after one revolution) in the planetary 
 distances.
 And because the location was known for one moment (i.e. the parent 
 comet) the rest can be calculated. And the trail course is only weakly 
 dependent of the true orbital period, IF this is long, at least a few 
 hundred years, like the Lyrids have.
 
 With the same principle, the aMo 1-rev trail can be calculated even 
 though the parent comet is unknown!
  >>

I am not sure if this will be of any help in the Aurigid dust trail
calculations, but here are two "possible" accounts of outbursts 
from China, dating back to the 11th century.  It would be interesting
to see if calculations reveal whether any dust trails were indeed near 
Earth around these times:

1037 August 21 OS (now Sept. 2): During the Song Dynasty in
the reign of Jing-you: "Several hundreds of stars glided 
southwestwards.  The largest of them went out in Dongbi; its
light lit up the Earth and persisted for some length of time."

1063 August 22 OS (now Sept. 2): During the Song Dynasty in
the reign of Jia-you: "Several hundreds of stars intersectingly
glided down and across."

I interpret the first observation including the notation of 
a brilliant, shadow-casting bolide with a long, persistant train.

Also . . . I have not been able to e-mail Jeremie Vaubaillon for several days 
now. My e-mails keep getting bounced with the subject header: Returned mail: 
Cannot send message within 2 hours with the following message:

   ----- Transcript of session follows -----
451 <vaubaill at imcce.fr>... imcce.fr: Name server timeout
Message could not be delivered for 2 hours
Message will be deleted from queue

Has anyone else encountered this problem?
-- joe rao