[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: (meteorobs) Coloured Trains ??



In the early days of this list we grilled over color in both meteors and
trains for a couple of weeks.  But with all the growth in the list the same
topics are bound to repeat occasionally.

I have been recording any color I see in trains ever since I began
observing, but I haven't tallied up the data yet.  Train colors are uncommon
but offhand I would say a handful per year is what I'm seeing.  Intensely
colored meteors have the best chance of producing a colored train, and
almost always the colors are the same.  Strongly orange meteors make orange
trains, for instance.  I also see blue or blue-green trains.  Recently I saw
a train with a color different from the meteor.

How real any of the meteor color is beyond yellow for sodium, I don't know.
Observer perception of color varies widely in number of colored meteors
seen, in variety of colors seen, and in intensity of individual colors.
Some observers see no color at all or very little, analogous to star color.
I do very well with colors -- a white meteor at +1m or brighter is quite
rare for me and a real novelty to see.  At +2m I see about 60% of meteors as
colored, at +3m about 10%,  just an occasional +4m, and very rarely a +5m.
The faintest two are almost always intensely orange.  For intensities I get
roughly a quarter of my colors as intense (like airplane lights), about half
the remainder as moderate ( like the strongest star/planet colors as Mars or
Antares), and the final group as subtle (like typical star color.)

I will have to post a typical color table for one shower, magnitude vs
color.  These tables make interesting patterns and I always like to see what
other observers come up with.  My dominant color is yellow, with blue and
orange as secondaries.  Blue-green, green, and purple are less common; and I
never see red.

For the past 2 months trying to do more than eat, sleep, and work has been a
lost cause.  I haven't had time to read all messages yet.   Tax season has
been very heavy this year but it's over on April 15.  I did leave it all
behind for nearly 2 weeks to go see the Feb 26 eclipse on a cruise to the
Caribbean -- got 3:26 minutes total in between Aruba and Guadaloupe.  Joan
got her first total eclipse.  It was my 4th one seen out of 6 attempts.
Venus was blazing away more than 20 minutes before totality. A little more
to say later; it's time to go to work again.

Norman