(meteorobs) a fireball from comet C/1763 S1 (Messier) ?

Esko Lyytinen esko.lyytinen at jippii.fi
Sun Mar 26 11:32:53 EST 2006


Hi all,

I inform you that a fireball observed recently here in Finland with two 
video cameras appears to have a solar system orbit very much like that 
of the comet C/1763 S1 (Messier).
It was observed by Jarmo Moilanen and myself in Mar.  21. at  02:52:16 UT.

Here is the orbit of the fireball and that of the comet taken from 
Marsden et al. catalog from the year 1996.
fireball q=0.463, e=0.988 (a=37) , peri=85.58, node=0.269 , i=72.09
comet  q=0.49818, e=1 , peri=88.571, node=359.747, i=72.497  , 
perihelion time 1763, Nov. 2.374 .
The uncertainty in the fireball semi-major axis may be up to infinity 
and the uncertainty in peri and i is expected to be about a degree or two.
even though it was well recorded in both stations, it was roughly in 
between our stations which situation is not so good for best accuracy, 
but quite a common situation with us. (The observing loacations are: 
Jarmo E 26.7345 , N 64.3922 , myself E 24.9886 , N 60.2495. )
Jarmo's UFOAnalyzer program derived the maximum brightness of the 
fireball as - 9.2 (not quite reliable).

The geocentric radiant was derived as 315.1 , +21.4 .(J2000.0)
(The solar system orbit and the radiant were derived with Marco 
Langbroek's Excel sheet.)
This radiant is only about 45 degrees from the Sun, so the possible 
shower can be only (well) observed in early morning hours. We did not 
immediately find any other members in our videos, but some obesrved 
meteors may still need a better inspection if these might be connected. 
There have been some other firballs recently that have taken quite a lot 
of time.

Esko Lyytinen



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