(meteorobs) Meteor Activity Outlook for May 26-June 1, 2006

[Skywayinc at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/26/2006 4:51:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
lunro.imo.usa at cox.net writes:

With the  close
approach of 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann to the Earth in 2006, there  exists the
small possibility that some activity may be seen from this  shower during the
next two weeks. The Earth passes closest to the largest  fragment of this
comet near 20:00 Universal Time on May 31. This is not a  particularly close
approach so very low numbers, if any at all, are  expected to appear then, or
during the remainder of this encounter. 


Regarding what Bob Lunsford wrote last week, I'd like to clarify that Earth  
will not be passing closest to the largest fragment of  
73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann-3 on May 31.  Rather, the Earth will passing  closest to the descending 
node of the comet.  I've done my own calculations  and find (using the orbital 
elements for component C) that Earth will be  passing the node at 8h UT on May 
31.  The distance between the orbits will  be 0.054 a.u. Interestingly, the 
comet itself was at this nodal crossing  point just 7.2 days earlier.
 
Jeremie Vaubaillon has modeled the location of debris shed from previous  
encounters and has found a "knot" of material virtually coinciding with the  
node.  Unfortunately, a distance of 0.054 a.u. is probably too large to  produce 
any kind of significant outburst, but if there any kind of activity that  is to 
be seen from the Tau Herculids, this might be the time to look.   Perhaps 12 
hours before to 12 hours after the nodal crossing,  will hold the most promise.
 
As Bob also noted, there shouldn't be much of a problem identifying  members 
of this swarm.  Their entry speed into our atmosphere is only 15  km./9 mi. 
per second, so these meteors will appear to move extremely slow  across your 
line of sight.      
 
-- joe rao