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Re: (meteorobs) Saw a clustering of Perseids!!!!!
Pierre:
This sounds like an event that a number of us witnessed from Central Oregon during the 1999 Leonids. This was a cluster of at least 5 Leonids, traveling in perfectly parallel paths. However, they were not *perfectly* simultaneous. The two brightest ones led the others by a bit (time sort of stopped during this for me, so I'm not quite sure by how much). My impression was of several bright meteors, visible at the same time, riding golden trains. The brightest one had a terminal burst of magnitude -10 to -12 and left a train visible for 50 minutes. The others I estimated at -3, -1, 0, and +1. There was also a sixth, fainter one that appeared a second or so later in the same area of the sky. My impression was that this event was very similar to the 1997 video. If Dustin Brown or other Oregon/Washington observers are around, they might add their comments.
An area artist/astrophotographer apparently caught this on film, and I was supposed to purchase a print, but I haven't yet made connections.
--
Wes Stone
http://skytour.homestead.com
On Fri, 10 August 2001, Pierre Martin wrote:
>
> I was out meteor observing in Casselman (Ontario) earlier in the
> August 10 evening, and I just witnessed one of the most unusual
> thing...
>
> At exactly 4:20:33 UT just east of Cassiopeia, I witnessed for the
> first time what seemed to me like a true clustering of Perseid
> meteors. It was a flight of at least 4 Perseids all travelling
> tightly together in parallel paths. They were **perfectly
> simultaneous**, and the "group" was all contained within 4 degrees.
> They travelled the same lenght (7 or 8 degrees long), and all lasted
> only a fraction of a second. Not even the great 1999 Leonid meteor
> storm I witnessed in Europe had anything quite like this.
>
> My first thought was... "this looks almost like the 1997 Leonids
> cluster that was caught on intensified video" (although I doubt there
> were that many). The grouping had twin 2nd magnitude meteors with 0.5
> sec trains, a third magnitude and another fainter one.
>
> The bright Quarter moon was already high up in the east, so I have no
> idea if more fainter meteors were lost from the glare. Several
> observers who happened to look in the right direction also witnessed
> this, and reported seeing at least 2 or 3 meteors flying together. It
> was really a cool sight!!!
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