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(meteorobs) Leonids peak



Joe Rao wrote:

>     The four-revolution dust trail of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle was somewhat
> late in encountering the Earth on Tuesday morning, November 19.  Revised
> predictions by Rob McNaught and David Asher gave 10:34 UT as the time of
the > peak.  Esko Lyytinen and Ton Van Flandern forecast the peak for 10:40
UT.  It
> appears that the peak actually came within a minute of 10:48 UT, or 8 to
14
> minutes later than expected.
>
>     Interestingly . . . a prediction issued only several weeks earlier by
> Jeremie Vaubaillon, at the Inst. de Mecanique Celeste et de Calcul des
> Ephemerides (France), indicated that the 4-rev. peak would arrive at 10:47
UT
> -- apparently just one minute earlier than what actually happened!

    Here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, we at the Sky Scan Science Awareness
Project had a network of four radio observatories set across an arc some 30
km across in north Edmonton, using the forward scatter method on FM 92.1.
All four, including two in junior high schools and two private stations of
project leaders, recorded very positive results, using Jim Sky's Radio
SkyPipe program. While correlation is not 100% hit-for-hit by any means --
and I'm still transcribing the data, correcting for clock errors, etc. --
there is a very strong peak that appears to be centred on 10:47 and change
UT in all cases. This is quite striking visually. If you are interested,
check out our website www.skyscandot ca , and click on "comparison of results"
in the news flash on top of the home page. These are the raw data, so the
charts are not aligned with each other. If you wish, drop me a note and I'll
send you small JPEG files showing the results from 3 to 4 a.m. MST at all
four stations on the same scale. We will have more organized data such as
this posted on our website in due course.

    regards, Bruce McCurdy

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