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(meteorobs) Time of Geminid maximum
A UK observer sent me an e-mail today. The gist of his message
was that he was trying to locate the time of maximum for the Geminids
and found widely differing values. He wrote:
"It's given as 16h UT 13/Dec on the IMO pages. Gary Kronk's page gives
0030 UT. Another source gives 0700."
I couldn't locate the 0030 reference in Gary's Meteor Shower pages,
only lambda_sol=261.3 (presumably B1950). It must be disconcerting to
find such diverse times.
Any comments why there might be such a wide discrepancy? I wondered
if someone was using the wrong equinox, or were using the solar
longitude from a generation ago. My WGN and BAA Journals are at home,
so I can't research this now. The lambda_sol=262.0 (J2000) certainly
sounds right. I see the DMS page reckons 0.1d later, which looks to
be the same as the IMO time within the uncertainties.
Malcolm
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