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(meteorobs) FWD: AFAM preliminary report of the 1997 Leonids
The following report was communicated by Giovanni Sostero of AFAM, Italy.
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Dear Sirs,
We are an amateur astronomical society. Together with the local town council,
we are managing a public observatory, located in Remanzacco (near Udine),
that's almost 150 Km North-East of Venice, in northern Italy.
Besides some educational activities for schools and people in general, we are
performing, in our club we have also some active groups of amateur researchers.
Among them, one is dealing with VHF forward scattering radio detection of
meteors (we are also members of IMO).
I would like to send you our preliminary report about 1997 peak of Leonid
meteors, as detected with our instruments, hoping that it will be of some
interest for you.
Best regards,
-Giovanni Sostero- (President of AFAM)
Address:
Associazione Friulana di Astronomia e Meteorologia (AFAM)
Via S.Stefano, 31
33047-Remanzacco (UD)
ITALY
phone: ++39-432-668176 (observatory)
++39-40-3758632 (G.Sostero, office)
fax: ++39-40-226338 (please specify: to G.Sostero-Optics Lab.)
e-mail: afam@mail.conectadot it
sostero@elettra.triestedot it
homepage: http://www.conectadot it/afam/index.htm (under costruction)
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LEONID METEORS AS RECORDED FROM REMANZACCO OBSERVATORY: FIRST REPORT
Preliminary data analysis of the Leonid '97 activity, was performed from the
data collected with one of the two receiving stations operated by the
Radioastronomy Team of our Observatory.
The instrumental setup for the first receiving station we are considering
hereby, is as follows:
LOCATION: Remanzacco Astronomical Observatory (Udine Province, Italy)
Lat. North 46d 05' 11"; Long. East 13d 18' 59"; 113m above sea level
STATION MASTER: Giorgio Bressan (afam@mail.conectadot it)
ANTENNA: Yagi 3 elements (height 2m, horizontal polarization, elevation angle
zero degrees), 40 degrees lobe width.
RECEIVER: professional receiver, USB mode, bandwidth 1.5 KHz, 48.231 MHz
TRANSMITTER LOCATION: Varsavia (Poland), 48.250 MHz, about 900 Km North-
NorthEast from the receiving station (bearing as seen from our observatory: 33
degrees)
SAMPLING FREQUENCY: 5 readings/sec
REPORT:
Our radio monitoring patrol of the Leonid meteor 1997 event, started on
November 12, and is still lasting. According a preliminary analysis of the data
taken with one receiving station (see technical parameters listed above) of the
two we have, we can say that an increasing from the background sporadic meteor
activity started clearly on Nov.17 at 04:00 UT. We found a first (weak) peak of
activity starting at 07:15 UT, that lasted up to 08:40 UT, peaked at 08:15 UT.
Than follows a main maximum of meteor frequency, started at 09:40 UT up to
11:31 UT, peaked at 10:50 UT. During this event we registerd many overdense
tracks, one of which lasted up to 400 sec.
The activity than decreased to a minimum, centered at 15:00 UT, and spanning
almost 5 hour. After that we recorded a steady, smooth increase of meteor flux
starting from 18:00 UT, with several secondary peaks, the main of which occured
at 22:35 UT, followed by some other events, all along the night from Nov.17 -
Nov.18.
From our data, it's obvious that the peak occurred on Nov.17 at 10:50 UT has a
completely different shape profile, compared to the maximun recorded on Nov. 17
at 22:35 UT: the latter has a very "flattened" behaviour, composed of different
secondary maxima, lasting several hours, while the previous one has a sharper
and steep profile, lasting less than two hour, at most.
All the comments reported above (time of maxima, etc.), are obviously referred
to our "local" observing conditions, that are a function of our hardware setup
and geometrical conditions under which we were looking at the radiant.
More informations about our work, included simultaneous data recording we
obtained from a second receiving station we are operating, setted to a
transmitter located in Frankfurt-Germany (48.250 MHz, distance 620 Km, bearing
324 degrees), will follow this preliminary report. Meanwhile, we wellcome any
question/comment/criticism related to this first contribution we are sending
you.
We would like to warmly thank Werfried Kuneth for his kind help and for the
patience he has with us,
Regards,
-Giorgio Bressan-
Team leader of the radioastronomy group
Remanzacco Observatory