(meteorobs) Geminids peak from London - mini-outburst!?

Bias, Peter V pbias at flsouthern.edu
Mon Dec 15 14:18:44 EST 2008


Hi all,

Clusters are an inevitable aspect of randomness.  If you take data by any particular time segment, such as per minute or per 10-second intervals, you'll find that "clustering" and "gaps" occur.  If they didn't, you would have an exact time piece and not a meteor shower.  Every time I've performed a Chi-square goodness of fit test for a Poisson distribution with meteor shower data, I've found that meteor showers follow a Poisson extremely well.  There is nothing "going on"; it's just that random meteors appear to occasionally bunch and gap.
Looking forward to the Ursids!

  Pete Bias 

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org [mailto:meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org] On Behalf Of Francisco Ocaña
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 12:59 PM
To: Global Meteor Observing Forum
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Geminids peak from London - mini-outburst!?

Hi Leo,

I think that this kind of "clusters" are common. The 12th of December at 
23:38TU I recorded and saw 3 geminids in a minute.

Moreover I have noticed around 4 or 5 more of these clusters, with 2 
geminids in less than 3 minutes, appearing in the same place of the sky 
(+/- 5-10º)!!. I suppose that they are related (although they have 
thousand of km between them) , is that wrong?

Best,

Paco

Leo S escribió:
> At around 2:45-2:55 UT there was what appeared to be a mini outburst, 
> when I saw 4 Geminids in around 1.5 minutes, two of them fireballs. 
> Otherwise, there were quite long gaps between seeing Geminids. Given my 
> restricted view of the sky and the poor LM, this would suggest a ZHR 
> well in excess of 160 if I'm not mistaken?!
>
>
>   


_______________________________________________
Mailing list meteorobs: meteorobs at meteorobs.org
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email: owner-meteorobs at meteorobs.org
http://lists.meteorobs.org/mailman/listinfo/meteorobs





More information about the Meteorobs mailing list