(meteorobs)Fwd: P73 meteor shower on the night of May

[Esko Lyytinen]

Hi,

In my opininon, the distance to the comet orbit and dense debris orbits 
only very gradually increases to both sides of the date May 22/23.
So I do not expect any short shower then. A short outburst might be 
possible from old non-modelled trails but this could happen whenever in 
the coming few weeks.

What I think may be possible is the next. Ecliptic micrometeoroids 
colliding the meteoroids at the asteroid belt and outwards to aphelion 
(near the Jupiter orbit) would tend to icrease the q-value and bring the 
meteoroids more close to the Earth orbit. It is my opininon that this 
kind of scatter does happen. And because there is probably a very dense 
meteoroids sream inside the earh orbit now, there might be enough of 
this for some level activity.
However the effect would need to be quite big (for enough orbit shift) 
and collisions that affect enough may explode the whole meteoroids 
possibly to nonexistent.
The Vinf of this meteor shower is quite small and so the encountered 
meteoroids need to be much bigger than for example with Leonids to get 
detected.

If this effect would give some activity, then I would expect it to be 
for a number of days or possibly even weeks, more or less centered 
around the node.
The maximum would however probably be some days before the node. This 
could very gradually start now when ever.

It might also be possible that some processes in the split may have 
caused big enough ejection speeds to scatter the trail a lot. This kind 
of shower would also last for days, but probably be centered more early 
(around May 22 or soon after this) than with the previous mechanism, ie 
this should start now very soon, if existing.

Let's see if anything will be observed,
Esko Lyytinen

 >>>
Any comment on this from our experts, like Esko, Peter, and anyone else 
that would like to delve into this prediction.  How factual is it and 
what are the sources? 

David Stine

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org 
[mailto:meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org] On Behalf Of Michael Boschat
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2006 5:32 PM
To: Global Meteor Observing
Subject: (meteorobs)Fwd: P73 meteor shower on the night of May 22-23? - 
keep looking in case

Hi:

Posted to an astro list:

Jack Drummond of the Starfire Optical Range predicts that debris
previously shed by the comet could bring us a meteor shower on the
night of May 22-23. He writes:

"The closest approach of [Fragment C's] orbit to the Earth, 0.04
astronomical unit, occurs on May 22 at 20:00 UT. Thus the maximum of
the meteor shower would be on May 22 or May 23, with a radiant of right
ascension 208° [13h 52m] and declination +30° [in Canes Venatici, 12°
north-northwest of Arcturus], and a geocentric velocity of 13.5 km/sec,
which is quite slow." Unlike with many meteor showers, this radiant is
highest in the sky as early in the night as 11 p.m. daylight saving time -
so the meteors would be visible any time from dusk to dawn.

If the shower does peak around 20:00 Universal Time, that would be during
evening for continental Europe,later at night for western Asia, and before
dawn for Central and South Asia. But keep watch wherever you are; the 
shower,
if any, could arrive many hours earlier or later than that.

-- 
Clear skies
===========
Michael Boschat
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada - Halifax Center
Astronomy page: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~aa063