(meteorobs) Two questions for meteorobs members

Skywayinc at aol.com Skywayinc at aol.com
Wed Jul 28 10:30:51 EDT 2010


QUESTION 1: 
 
When or who started naming meteors showers by the  constellation patronym? 
The meteors from  Perseus are ‘offspring’ or  ‘descendents’ (literally!) 
from there. So they are the Perseides, or Perseids in English. This was the  
practice at least thru the 20th century but with showers recognized by the 
mid  19th I should  think one of the early  astronomers back then started 
with these  names.
QUESTION 2: 
Are the V(infinity) speeds  of meteors corrected for the Earth’s gravity? 
The speed would be, by the time we see the shooting  star have a downward 
component of 11km/s due to falling by  gravity. This is in addition to the 
vector  combination of the orbital motions of the meteor and Earth. 
How is the gravity  vector treated. Its direction varies with location of 
the observer  on Earth. Is it by convention the  vector for the radiant in 
the zenith, parallel to the meteor-Earth  vectors? 
-- joe rao 



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