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Re: (meteorobs) Current Gia-Draconid position
Hello Kim,
I don't have the exact positions in hand, but if I remember
correctly, there is very little drift of the Draconids' radiant
within their activity period.
The Draconids shower has always been the most fascinating to me. I
suppose their elusiveness in most years and historical meteor storms
has something to do with my curiosity about them. For me to be able
to confirm even the weakest hint of activity in an "off-year" would
be as much a thrill as seeing an outburst. It goes back to when I was
just getting into meteor observing in the early 1990's. I was going
through a small astronomy pocket book (Stars by Zim Baker) that
happened to have a small section on meteors. A table listing the
major showers had a comment on the Draconids stating "period about
6.5 years". After calculating the years after the storm of 1946, I
came up with 1991-92 as possible returns. After an impatient wait, I
monitored these years closely in hopes of any sign of activity
(staying up *way* past my bedtime on Oct 8/9 and 9/10, 1991). On the
first night, I recorded 2 meteors that aligned, but their velocity
was very fast, so they could not be Draconids. No activity was seen
in 1992.
In 1993, I wanted to keep an eye up for Draconids just in case
something would happen. Unfortunately, I was clouded out the eve. of
Oct 8. However, the next night was clear. On Oct. 9/10 near 00:30
EDT, I took a quick look out my window (facing north). Within just 30
seconds, a magnitude -1 meteor appeared, and moved slowly to the
north-west horizon. "Nice sporadic!" I thought. However, I soon
realized with a quick alignment that the path intersected with the
presumed radiant near Draco's head. With that in mind, I ran outside
to watch for about 30 minutes. Nothing else happened.
In October 1994, I decided to observe the early morning sky near the
presumed Draconids activity, even though I knew it was another
"off-year". In the early evening Oct. 8/9 of that year, I stepped
outside to examine the weather conditions for a moment, and it was
clear. Soon, I got caught off-guard by 3 slow moving meteors
radiating from near Draco's head in less than 15 minutes! At the
time, I had no idea of the GIA's actual velocities, but these were
indeed quite slow. They were also rather faint. One seen near the
radiant moved a very short distance. All excited, I ran back inside
to call a friend that was preparing to join me for the session in my
backyard, and tell him to hurry so not to miss the activity. For some
reason, by the time we signed on, it was already much later in the
evening. I noticed how the radiant was sinking lower in the
north-west. With clear skies for 2 hours, nothing else happened.
Increasing clouds eventually forced us to quit (my observing friend
had fallen asleep in his chair out of boredom).
Clear skies,
Pierre
>I was wondering if anyone could give me tonight's (10-05/06)
>radiant position for the Draconids in RA and dec only. I have a visual
>chart (thanks Bob) but it shows the peak date only. It may clear here
>tonight and I plan on observing if it does. I found Takema's report of
>early activity most interesting.
>Kim S. Youmans
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