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Re: (meteorobs) abundance of nebulous meteors was Fwd: Howfast do Meteors go?



        I have been curious about nebulous meteors since I began "serious"
observing three years back.  It would be nice if a thread could be generated
on the topic even if firm answers won't be forthcoming.  My frequency of
nebulous meteors is just slightly higher than Nick's...With roughly 3000
meteors logged since early 1999 I have seen at least fifteen or more nebulous
meteors -- at least what I belived were nebulous meteors based on the sketches
and descriptions I have seen/read.
        The most striking incident for me concerning these ghostly entities
was just a few months ago during the Quadrantid peak.  In addition to four
fireballs and what for me were great rates,  I had the pleasure of seeing two
bright nebulous meteors.  The first was one of the most gorgeous things  I
ever saw crawl across the sky.  To quote from my report earlier this year,
"...I must admit that while the Quads were strong, individually they were
upstaged by a magnitude +2 nebulous meteor that, at 9:04 UT appeared from the
SW and very slowly crawled across the sky before fading out near the zenith.
It had a teardrop shape and a rather long wake -- its slow speed allowed me to
get a very good look at it.  It was absolutely ghostly in appearance!  Another
identical though smaller nebulous meteor (and with a shorter path length)
appeared from the NE at 10:09UT...."
        My intuition tells me there's something special about these meteors
and it's probably *not* the atmospheric conditions but what do I know?  Anyone
else willing to make a more educated guess?

Kim Youmans

Nick Martin wrote:

> At 07:45 PM 5/8/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >Lew;
> >    McKinley also to "dustball"  which I presume is one of these nebulous
> >meteors.  How common or maybe I should say how rare are nebulous meteors?
> >
> Just as a very crude estimate my meteor logging might have recorded around
> 1000 meteors and I have seen 2 nebulous meteors  so that is around 0.2%.
> Nick
> Nick Martin, Bonnyton House, By Ayr, Ayrshire KA6 7EW ,Scotland, UK.
>  Latitude 55 24'56" Longitude 4 26' 00".
>
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