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(meteorobs) Solar activity and meteors (reply)
Marco,
Thank you for the note about the connection of meteor rates to solar
activity. I don't think I was telling there is no relation, I just noted
that the height of the ionosphere may not affect meteor rates, whereas the
air density does, and this is what you also indicated citing several
papers. I find "well established" a little exaggerated when talking about
observational evidence. We have to bear in mind that it is always only one
solar activity period which is covered by a single publication. Several of
them together indeed hint on a consistent picture. I tried to extract
sporadic rates from the VMDB 1984-1997, and I only used those obtained
between 2200 and 0200 hours local time and those noted in July, since this
a month covered by many observations and is not affected by a major shower.
I did not find any correlation. Here is the data:
Year sporadic hourly rate
1984 14.8
1985 12.6
1986 15.6
1987 18.0
1988 12.8
1989 13.9
1990 14.7
1991 15.7
1992 18.0
1993 15.1
1994 14.8
1995 15.3
1996 17.6
1997 15.3
(By the way, I was satisfied by the overall constancy of the rates, which
does not support the suspicion about rates inflating during the last
years.)
Of course, this is just a quick look in the data, more can certainly be
done. Nevertheless, we don't have much more than one cycle either. When
looking at the graphs of PER and ORI in Peter Jenniskens' article, I would
like to know how other shower behaved. I guess enough data should also be
available for the Geminids, eta-Aquarids and Southern delta-Aquarids
according to Table 3a.
The analysis will be an interesting task using a long series of visual
observations (more than 2 solar cycles). I am keen on seeing more on this.
Best wishes, Rainer
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