Re: (meteorobs) Nov 9 "radiant"

To: meteorobs@latradedot com
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Nov 9 "radiant"
From: kronkg@medicine.wustldot edu (Gary W. Kronk)
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 10:07:49 -0600
Reply-To: meteorobs@latradedot com
Sender: owner-meteorobs

I checked out my visual, photographic, and radio-echo databases and found
no trace of an active radiant in the past. At first glance there are four
candidates, but none of them agree with one another in terms of orbit and
speed. There is one close photographic meteor on November 2.3, 1953, but it
occurs too early and a reasonable radiant drift puts it several degrees
away by the 9th. There are three radio-echo meteors that are close, but not
exact. They were scattered across the date search parameter of November 1
to 15. None of these three radio-echo meteors are related to one another,
nor with the photographic meteor, thus all four objects are sporadics seen
from 1953 through 1968.

The possibilities we are left with are
1. This is a new radiant.
2. There were several chance alignments of sporadics that accounted for the
"radiant".
3. The "radiant" was composed of a few Taurids heading in one particular
direction.

With no confirming reports from other observers, I think two and three are
most likely. I would tend to go with number 2 myself, but I like George
Zay's comments concerning his own observations.   :-)

Gary