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(meteorobs) Casual meteors 14 Sep 2001, 13 UT - possible radiant near 060+20?


Following is a message relayed to me regarding some casual meteors observed
by Stephen James O'Meara from Hawai'i... The IMO doesn't recognize activity
from the Taurid streams as beginning before 30 September - and in any case,
on 30 Sep their radiants will be located way over in SE Pisces, 40+ degrees
distant from this location. (If the radiant were active tonight, they'd be
still farther West!) IMO's "Southern Piscids", identified by Bob Lunsford as
a continuation of the year-round "antihelion" class of Sporadics, are in fact
on the ecliptic and active now, but are even farther West - over 50 degrees.

It would help to know how large of a radiant area Stephen used to associate
these meteors together. Also, he does not mention their relative speeds (as
neighboring meteors from a shower should share comparable angular velocities).
But I relay this "heads up" in the hope that other observers might have been
plotting or video recording that night, and can confirm or deny a radiant at
the location Steve mentions. Thanks for your forward to our list, Steve...


NOTE: Steve is not a current 'meteorobs' reader. If you wish to follow up,
please MANUALLY put 'someara@interpacdot net' in the "Cc:" line of your reply.

Clear skies,
Lew Gramer <owner-meteorobs@atmob.org>


------- Forwarded Message

Dan Green <...> writes:

Lew, Can you please pass this message around to the meteor observers e-mail
discussion group? The following is from Steve O'Meara, which he asked me to
forward to this group to solicit observations in the coming nights. Any
observations, positive or negative, should be forwarded to him at e-mail
someara@interpacdot net

     Many thanks, Dan Green



Here is the original message from Steve O'Meara:

Prior to comet hunting, I had to make visual (naked-eye) observations of
double stars in Taurus for a book I'm wrapping up. At about 3:35 a.m. HST
(Sept 14 @ 13:30 UT) I saw a wonderful sight -- the simultaneous appearance
of two 3rd magnitude meteors (about 160o apart in azimuth) darting from an
apparent radiant half way between the Hyades and the Pleiades. The proximity
of the meteors to this apparent radiant made me wonder if a meteor shower
was occurring this morning; I couldn't think of any, off hand. The position
of the radiant made me suspect the Taurids, but I thought they were most
active in October and November. I continued to make my double star
obsrvations; in the next five minutes, however, I saw two more meteors --
both could be traced back easily to the suspected radiant. By 3:47 (12
minutes after the first two meteors were sighted) I had logged six
"Taurids."

Assuming a meteor shower was in progress  -- one that I had overlooked;
albeit a nice one -- I returned to my original plans and set up to comet
hunt. As I was setting up, I *periodically* looked up and logged an
additional 4 "Taurids" -- until 14:14 UT. There was now no doubt that I was
witnessing a burst of meteor activity; Regardless, I then applied myself to
comet hunting so I made no further meteor observations.

Upon my return home, I did a bit of research on the Taurids, which appear to
have a very complex system of radiants, as well as a complex history. Some
accounts have the Taurids starting as early as September 17th.
Interestingly, the radiant I saw does not match the path of the northern or
southern streams but a point midway bewteen them. The mystery is that the
Taurids are not expected to peak until next month or a bit later in
November.

The meteors I saw ranged from zero magnitude to 5th -- evenly distributed.
If the activity persisted at the rate of about 6 meteors per 15 minutes for
the entire hour the ZHR would have been about ~50 (but that's a big "if").

------- End of Forwarded Message


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