(meteorobs) More fireballs with PER than with all other showers?

[Robert Lunsford]

Any experienced observer who has viewed numerous returns of all the major showers will tell you that the Geminids produce the highest percentage of fireballs. Paul Martsching makes a good point in the long duration of the Perseids verses the short duration of the Geminids. I also wonder what the August weather verses December weather plays in the NASA data?

Curiously, my brightest Perseid (-13) is brighter than my brightest Geminid (-10). But I have also seen many more fireballs in the -6 to -8 range for the Geminids compared to the Perseids. My usual brightest Perseid for any year is magnitude -6. As Paul Jones also mentioned, there have also been years when nothing brighter than -4 has appeared. The Geminids have never failed to produce a fireball in any year I have viewed them and I personally find that Geminid fireballs are more colorful compared to Perseids.

Anthony, I do not believe the perceived fireball color has any bearing on rates. Interestingly enough, my thoughts of the fireball colors are opposite of yours with more Peresids appearing white and more Geminids appearing yellow. Perhaps the slower velocity of the GEM's allows me a better chance a seeing color?

I also found it interesting that Paul Martsching mentions the Quadrantids. Anyone who has seen a true Quad maximum knows that this shower can produce some very bright meteors. My brightest being magnitude -10 with a 4 minute train.

In the graph I feel the Orionids are overrepresented as this shower produced some abnormal fireball displays during the late 2000's. I also found it interesting that the NTA's produced 3x more fireballs than the STA's when the STA's are supposedly the more active branch.

Lastly, I find it unfortunate that the NASA article mentions that "the Perseid meteor rate from dark-sky sites could top 100 per hour". That sets a very high bar that will most likely not be reached, especially by the general public who view too early in the night and usually do not concentrate like serious observers. An hourly rate of 50-60 from dark sky sites would have been far more realistic.

Clear Skies!

Bob

> 
> On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 5:04 PM, <dfischer at astro.uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> 
>   The statistics reported in
>   http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/26jul_perseids
>   based on a single fireball camera network should easily be reproduced by
>   other video observation networks or even in visual meteor data bases - and
>   the claimed overabundance of fireballs with the PER should actually have
>   been detected well before if it is as prominent as shown in the history.
>   Has it?
> 
>   Dan