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(meteorobs) Possible Comet C/2000 WM1 LINEAR meteors
>Original Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 16:05:17 +0930
hi all,
I'm new to the meteorobs group, but myself and a few friends have been
observing and recording (and photographing) meteor showers in the Southern
Hemisphere for about 5 years. We are based in Adelaide, South Australia,
Australia.
But we undertake trips to darksites for the peaks of the showers that are
available to us,and sometimes the days either side of the peaks as well, but
sometimes i just observe from the backyard if the moon is a problem or
whatever reason.
I am also a member of the yahoo comets-ml group, as myself and some
friends, are also avid comet observers and photographers (we enjoy most
things astronomical). Recently i posted a question on comets-ml about the
possibility of meteors from the recent dust trail of C/2000 WM1.
The reason being that i had noticed months earlier, that on a NASA web page,
they were using a java applet that was a 3-d ephemeris type thing of the
comet that showed that the Earth seemed to pass close or through the old
dust trail around May 18,19, 20... You can find it at:
http://neo.jpl.nasadot gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2000+WM1&group=all&search=Search
And got a reply to my question which said....
Calculations show that the theoretical radiant for dust particles from
Comet C/2000 WM 1 (LINEAR) by the best fitted method lies close to
the star Omega in the constellation Fornax. The calculated day of
maximum is around 19.1 May.
....and also there was a posting on the B.A.A comet page about the
possibility of meteors it said....
possible meteors from 2000 WM1. The earth passes 0.013 AU from the orbit of
2000 WM1, 78 days after the comet on May 19.1 Any meteors would be
moderately fast with a radiant at 2.44 hours RA, -29.6o Dec....
so with that in mind i tried to observe any possible such meteors...
On the sunday morning local time the weather was bad and it had rained for
days. But the monday morning local time
20 / may / 02 ..3.30 am A.C.S.T [ 18:00 19 / may / 02 U.T.] it cleared
up enough to do some observing .. large holes in the cloud cover, that
continued till 6.30 am local time.
It was too late to go to a dark site and it was probaly dangerous to drive
there at the time.
So i did my observing in my outer suburban backyard, which is at the foot of
the Adelaide hills, and has quite dark skies looking north east ,east and
south east .looking over conservation parks.
But this is my report from there on....
Somewhere between 3.30-4.00 a.m local time there were two very close
together mag. -1 meteors that started 35=BA away from proposed radiant
heading sw ( the radiant was not visible yet at this stage.) They were quite
fast and bright and zigg-zagged a little as they went, covering about 40o of
the sky ..they where blue and white in appearence with a hint of smoke train.
Between 4 & 5 am local time there were three extremely quick meteors ,and
close together time wise ( the type that your not sure you even saw them
..but i did see them ..LOL), ..and again these definitely appeared to come
from the right direction and radiant to be contenders..then around 5.30 a.m
local time there were two short (15=BA long) mag.-1, similtaneous meteors that
came from a very tight radiant and diverged at about 35o from the radiant
headin west and wsw......the only thing was the radiant was very close to
the star Delta Sculptor !!..
i continued observing on and off till 6.30 local time (and saw Fornax rise
by then, but there was no more action )...
there were sporadics during the sessions as well, but all came from the west
mostly..
..and i only observed about 50% of the time during the hours mentioned (due
to weather and making cups of tea )
regards
Kearn Jones
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