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(meteorobs) Seasonal Sporadic Meteor Rates



    For those interested in on-line journals... full text Icarus articles are now available thru Idealibary (http://www.idealibrary.com/)..for FREE!!    (Icarus is the scientific journal for planetary science) .  what a great thing.... So I started perusing...  In the October 1998 issue I came across the following article:    Seasonal Changes in Sporadic Meteor Rates by Richard Schmude.  Here is the abstract....

R. Lunsford and G. Zay observed 15,114 sporadic meteors between 1992 and 1996 and their data are analyzed in this report.
The data reveal a distinct seasonal trend with rates from July through December being 1.31 ± 0.10 times those from January
through June. After the effect of the changing direction of the apex of Earth's way is removed, it is found that the July through
December rates are 3 ± 10% higher than those from January through June. The average corrected hourly rate for sporadic
meteors between 1992 and 1996 is 10.7 ± 1.3 at 2:00 am local standard time under a limiting magnitude of 6.5, which is
consistent with observations made between 1981 and 1991. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Icarus, v 135, n 2, October 1998, p496-500 (ID IS985965)
 

This is nice example of how good data obtained from amatuer visual meteor observers can and does get analyzed and published in professional peer reviewed scientific journals.. Good stuff !!
 

Joseph Assmus
San Diego, CA