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(meteorobs) Re: The 1998 Perseid Meteor Shower
I wanted to thank Ron Baalke for forwarding this news release, and to thank
NASA (indirectly) for taking the time to produce it with their name on it: it
is very heartening to see the increasing amount of public attention focused on
meteor watching in the past year or so!
BTW, Ron, were you one of the release's authors? I wanted to ask where I could
access the original electronic version of it on the Web? I'm particularly
intrigued to see the meteoroid impact crater on the Hubble that was discovered
in 1994, "after the 1993 Leonid meteor storm"(??)
BTW, I did want to object to the phrasing in the release's fifth paragraph,
which seemed to suggest to the general public (or at least fails to explain to
the contrary) that everyone on our planet would be witness to rates of 1000
meteors per hour or more! As a review of recent publications from Ron's fellow
NASAn Peter Jenniskens will affirm, this is unfortunately far from the case.
I also took some exception that it raises public hopes of seeing 80 meteors per
hour from this year's Perseids: This despite the fact that many of the intended
readers (those in North America) will lose both maximum-hours to daylight, and
that during both paranthetical nights, the moon (as the release rightly says)
will cut Perseid rates in half or worse for much of both nights.
Contrariwise though, I wanted to pose the question of whether its suggestion to
observe the Perseids before midnight this August 11 was appropriate? I have not
seen the formulae worked out, but I wonder if the effects of having a radiant
with very high zenith angle (low elevation) early in the evening, won't rather
exceed the effects of moonlight later that morning, when the radiant is high
above the horizon AND US observers are much closer to max time?
Clear skies,
Lew Gramer, IMO, AMS
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