(meteorobs) December rho Virginids (DRV) and Comet Seki (1961 T1)

[tpub at Safe-mail.net]

It looks fairly likely that Comet Seki 1961 T1 is the comet associated with the December rho Virginids (Regina Rudawska, Peter Jenniskens, Accepted in Proceedings of the Meteoroids 2013 Conference Aug. 26-30, 2013, A.M. University, Poznan, Poland).

<http://www.astro.amu.edu.pl/~jopek/MDC2007/Roje/pojedynczy_obiekt.php?kodstrumienia=00502>

A very minor shower, just missed in season this year but maybe cropping up on recent Leonid and Geminid surveys, or even old ones.

There was the merest hint of this in Dutch Meteor Society video data orbits of two decades ago, for instance, with the newer surveys showing it up better, but still not that noticeable a shower.  Fast meteors.

Apparently Hasegawa Ichiro predicted a shower around the time of this naked eye comets appearance back in 1961, quoted in Kronk's cometography to peak on about Nov 29th at RA 181 degrees, Dec +15, which compares very favourably to the particulars given for the shower on the IAU MDC above link.

Cheers

John