(meteorobs) Curved traces

[Chris Peterson]

I'm skeptical that meteors exist with trails that deviate far enough 
from linear motion to be perceptible to the unaided eye. The lack of 
photographic evidence supports that view.

It is instructive to calculate the force a body traveling at hypersonic 
speeds experiences in order to produce a visibly curved or oscillatory 
motion- it is much higher than any reasonable material strength.

I think anecdotal observations are better explained by various visual 
artifacts. There are plenty of candidates- projection confusion, normal 
and abnormal saccades, paired events, head or eye tracking errors. I've 
personally seen a star or two move suddenly with respect to other 
stars... and I'm even more skeptical that was real than I am about bent 
meteor trails!

That's not to say that meteor tracks are perfectly linear (of course, 
there's always a tiny degree of gravity focusing). Telescopic views of 
meteors such as those made by Peter Brown's group at UWO show all manner 
of interesting motion: fragmentations and aerodynamic or explosive 
deviations from straight flight. But these things weren't observed 
before the technology allowed for tracked telescopic observations. The 
deviations are just too small to be resolved visually.

Chris

*******************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On 5/2/2014 2:19 AM, Pavel Zhavoronkov wrote:
> Hi, group!
>
> I just would like to know, whether do really exist meteors with curved traces ?
>
>   I'm very interested about this question because a few days ago - 21 April -  I really saw such meteor with very curved trace: it has changed trace on approximately 130 degrees ! - it trajectory almost reversed. It was very like on a tennis ball, which  jumped aside from wall. It's color was blue and probably it belongs to Lyrids shower.
>
> Earlier, I already heard a few similar reports about such traces from several absolutely different observers - on my opinion, it didn't on a mistakes or optical illusion...
>
>
> Pavel from Northern Russia.
>
> Clear skies!