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Re: (meteorobs)subvisible meteors was Zodiacal light questions
Lew,
> Thanks, George, this was extremely helpful! BTW, are there any sites you
> know of on the Web where more details on ZLP (Zodiacal Light Phenomena)
> can be found? Or maybe a good book folks can recommend?
It's hard to write a book on it, unless it's for professional researchers.
There are some which do feature it, but not many. There's one at the back
of my mind, but I can't think which it is. I'm working on it...
Just had a look on Amazon.
Observing Comets, Asteroids, Meteors, and the Zodiacal Light
(Practical Astronomy Handbooks 5) ~ Ships in 2-3 days Stephen J.
Edberg, David H. Levy (Contributor) / Hardcover / Published 1995 Our
Price: $29.95
We might have that one in our library.
The Light of the Night Sky.
Franklin Evans, Roach / Hardcover / Published 1973
(Publisher Out Of Stock)
This sounds the definition one, but it's pre-IRAS. Recall the discovery
of bands above and below the ecliptic.
> I did have one question though: If Earth is actually inside the zodiacal
> dust cloud, why does the Zodiacal Band only appear to run narrowly along
> the Ecliptic? Under a dark sky, you'd expect it to stretch quite a ways
> above and below the Ecliptic, if we're actually inside of it!
Define narrow please. Isn't it the geometry? To use crude analogies,
we're in the Milky Way galaxy, but we only see the band we call the
Milky Way along its plane. The dust is concentrated in the ecliptic
plane. Here we're also dealing with reflected light. It's like the
brightness of the moon with phase doesn't just depend on the fraction
illuminated. The full moon is much brighter than a couple of days
either side. More of the light reflects back to the Earth for its
surface or the interplanetary dust.
Does that hand-waving make sense?
Malcolm
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