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(meteorobs) Re: 97Oct3 NM meteor notes
The low level of list activity is commensurate with dull current meteors
exacerbated by lack of brilliant comets. I saw 9 meteors in all of
September : 6 during an hour plus on the roof plus 3 casuals, one of which
occurred before evening twilight ended. Meteors that early are rather rare.
Right now the clouds have gone but there is orange haze around, so observing
still isn't worth it : town limit is around 4.0. We saw 4 bright planets
this evening. By month's end I want to see all 5 at once ; have never
achieved that before.
We had 7 inches of rain last Saturday, but none in the prior 11 days and
only a brief shower the next day since the deluge. Heavy showers were
training over this part of Florida for about 16 hours. Tampa got 12 inches
and Port Charlotte 13, located 120 and 30 miles north of Fort Myers. Now an
outbreak of flood mosquitoes is coming, hatched from eggs waiting on dry
land until suitable wetness came. I think most of peninsular Florida is
under the encephalitis alert. Four people have caught it, all elderly, but
all are recovering. One was in a town about 15 miles north of my observing
site, so, needless to say, I can't go out there until the bugs are largely
gone. That will take until early November at best. With a moon out for the
Orionids this year, I won't be much worse off staying in town anyway. The
situation would improve faster if we could get some cooler weather, but none
is forthcoming. In the 50's the bugs get more sluggish.
Mosquitoes do like some people more than others. I knew one person who
could be part of a crowd outdoors, and be the only one bitten. In the 1973
Delta Aquarid group meteor observing from the Keys, the night was caressed
by the hissing of spray repellents and rent by the curses of bite victims ;
and I was observing in shorts. That was indeed one of the worst years for
bugs. In California it sounds like Bob has a rougher time than George.
It's time to comment on posts from the last month. Beginning with the green
Milky Way mentioned by Bob, I am left out of this one. Even in the best
skies I have seen, LM7.7 twice, I detected no hint of any color. I have
never seen anything that I would call parallel trains. In the 1974 and
1975 Perseids, very rich in fireballs and long-enduring trains, binocular
views of the trains were among the most memorable views I have had in
astronomy. They resembled writhing and expanding snake skins with a lot of
delicate detail but without bright borders. The best train was from an
orange -6m Perseid in 1975, before maximum, with a train lasting 7 minutes
in sky LM7.5 from the Keys. A fireball with a series of bursts leaves a
record of its magnitude fluctuations in the train, which shows swellings
that match the burst sites and intensities. Unfortunately, it doesn't last
long enough to record details.
For long-duration fireballs, I tend to think 10 seconds is about the maximum
except for very unusual slow atmosphere-grazers. Longer objects would be
reentries of space junk. I do expect to see a definite orange color in the
latter ; for two things they are all going at about the same relatively slow
speed for meteors and are made of similar metal. In recent years the public
thinks more often of a reentering satellite when a fireball is seen, but not
being aware of the difference in angular velocity.
On fireball magnitude estimates brighter than -6m, I do not use the odd
numbers. This is my choice, and I have no quarrel with anyone who uses -7m
and -9m, for instance. I just don't honestly feel that I can be more
accurate than 2-magnitude intervals at the bright end.
Contrails lit by moonlight are interesting. I would expect them to be
feebly lit by distant cities even at remote sites, such as the west central
Everglades lit by Miami 70 miles away. Over the New York City area the
contrails seen would not be from planes landing at airports there ; numerous
other airports in other cities would furnish plenty of planes to produce
contrails for New York.
The two messages from Viraj did something unique. On the listing of
messages, his had a pair of red carats in the left-most box. The display
has been totally black-and-white otherwise. Did anyone else see this?
From my last post about meteors skipping off the atmosphere with Sirko's
question:
>> It hit the atmosphere tangentially the first time
>> then made a full earth orbit and reentered a second time further west. This
>> was discussed on meteorobs at the time.
>
>I thought this theory was skipped later because of the low probability. Do
>you know the latest 'state of knowledge' in this case?
>Sirko
Now I recall that this theory was dropped, but I don't know what took its place.
An interesting piece of spam had the following :
> By now, these folks are ASTOUNDED. Stu has accurately called
> three games in a row! They eagerly await his next letter.
>
>And they get it, and then they get another, and another - each
>week correctly calling the winner.
>
>Of course, after five weeks of discarding the "losers" from his
>list, Stu is now sending his letter to only 1,562 people (50,000
>to 25,000 to 12,500 and so on). But these 1,562 gamblers are
>practically salivating over their money-making prospects.
Brilliant concept ! I never thought of this one before. Numerate
individuals can milk the innumerate masses. A simpler scheme is to con 10
different people at the races (or however many critters are in the race) to
bet a bundle on 10 different numbers, then come around later to the winner
and collect a share for dispensing the hot tip.
From SteveH:
>Before I drop this subject: DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO DO ANYTHING WHATSOEVER TO
>FIX POWER LINE EQUIPMENT YOURSELF!! NEVER TRY TO CLEAN THE INSULATORS BY
>SPRAYING THEM WITH YOUR GARDEN HOSE:
> ================
> YOU WILL---ALMOST CERTAINLY---BE ELECTROCUTED!
> ================
>
>Call your power company and ask for help.
This reminded me of a situation in Miami in early 1979. While at the
university computer lab one evening the power kept blinking off heavily, one
or two seconds at a time, about every 15 minutes. Keeping any computer going
under those conditions is impossible. The cause was a prolonged dry spell
with low humidity, allowing salt to accumulate on the lines coming from a
nuclear plant south of Miami. This particular evening turned very humid,
which made a conducting salt solution all along the lines and shorting them
out repeatedly. The fire department went along US 1 below Homestead and
sprayed the poles to wash the salt off. How did these people survive their
work?
Here is another incident reported by Art Bell. A pastime in one town was
climbing transmission towers. One night someone had several beers before
climbing one, then inevitably had to do something else while up there. His
wiz vector carried his salty stream about 5 feet from a high-tension line,
causing it to arc over, run up the stream, and knock him 60 feet to the
ground. His parts were fried.
I found a few messages from last February that I had not looked at before,
one from Lew and an answer by I-don't know-who :
>Someone once told me one of the members of Queen had been an astrophysics
>dropout, and that "Another One Bites the Dust" was actually an oblique
reference
>to the interstellar medium... I always believe what I'm told. ;>
>
>Lew
>As far as I know Brian May (the guitarist for queen) holds a masters in
>astrophysics - but that's what I read. As for the interretation of ANother
>one bites the dust, can't buy that one :)
nameless
Rush Limbaugh had a different interpretation, which didn't sound like his
own. Naked women riding motorcycles around a dirt track ; each time one
fell off, it was "another one bites the dust."
That's enough for this time.
Norman