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Re: (meteorobs) clumping



I have gone through the ghastly spherical trig for exactly this problem. It
depends heavily on the shower; the primary consideration is the angular
distance between the radiant and the earth's orbital velocity vector. With
the Leonids this is especially small, about 5 degrees, but the Perseids and
Geminids have much larger values. It is not difficult for two physically
associated Leonids to be seen by the same observer -- the "streamer" track
moves across the observer's field of view at about 10 degrees per second
(this depends heavily on observer's position, radiant altitude, etc). With
Perseids and Leonids the streamers move much more quickly, so a separation
of even a few seconds will take the second meteor out of the observer's
field of view.

Another commentator noted that secondary breakups could in fact produce
clumping. This is precisely what I am looking for. So far, there is no hard
evidence of such clumping, even though we have all seen this kind of thing.
One major question is, what is the spatial scale of these clumpings? I'm
working on it, but most of the data just doesn't have the resolution I need
to answer the questions.

Chris Crawford

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