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(meteorobs) Re: Tau Herculids space junk smoke
The following came from Cook's list which I have found to be quite
productive. At least most of the showers listed show themselves even if at
low levels.
>I have an older list that shows the Tau Herculids active May 19 to June 14,
>reaching a peak on June 4. The radiant is listed as 228 +39 (15h 12m);
>velocity is listed as 15 km/s. Radiant drift is +0.9; -0.1. Note that the
>above radiant is actually in Bootes...
My copy shows June 3 (my birthday) as the max, but what is a day in a
long-enduring minor shower? I have seen only a handful of Tau Herculids,
and each one is dramatically slow and exciting to see. Usually they are
orange. The dates seem accurate also.
We discussed reentering space junk in the early days of this list. The
object described by YK Chia is a classic description of a reentry of a small
piece of something. Any time I see a very slow (like a fast-satellite
speed) orange meteor with much fragmenting and orange sparks, often with a
sparkly orange wake, I assume it is of man-made origin.
Split meteors are faster, up to medium speed, showing a secondary body
separating from the main one and staying on the same path. UFO buffs will
report one spacecraft following another when they see a split meteor,
because it "can't possibly be a meteor" and they "have seen meteors
before." The only time I have seen a divergence of the bodies was 1960 Nov
27 at 530AM from Miami. This was the most eventful meteor of my life
(thinking back on it years later indicates that it was a Taurid). It peaked
at -8m, but at the end it was -5m, then split into three equal orange -2m
pieces traveling two degrees with a divergent spread of perhaps 20 degrees.
Total duration was 8 seconds, and at the fifth second it let loose a
trailing shower of orange sparks briefly.
All of Florida is under a health alert because of the smoke and haze. No
end in sight until the lid is removed from our weather. Until the fires are
put out in Mexico the smoke will keep coming. There are some local fires
adding to the haze. The drought is getting rather bad; we have had less
than 2 inches of rain since March 1 and everything outside is turning crispy
in the heat. City sky LM's have ranged from +1m to +4m depending on how
much smoke is coming by at the time. I'm not going to bother meteor
observing until conditions substantially improve. The only consolation is
there's not too much going on right now.
Norman