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Re: (meteorobs) Joe Rao's summation of the 2002 Leonids



Jure,

At the peak time of 10:47UT, my radiant height was about 8.5deg. Using the published IMO ZHR of 2660 and r=2.3 with my LM=5.3, that means I should have seen about 7 LEO in a 3 minute bin. I saw ONLY ONE LEO in the 3 min bin centered on 10:47UT!!! Even at 10:59, when I saw my maximum 4 LEO in a 3 min bin, thats less than 50% of the expected 9.

There's definitely a significant under-performance from the predictions here!

Mike

--- ataju@emaildot si wrote:
> Mike,
> 
>   I am not sure what you're so angry about. You
> really shouldn't be that angry
> because you didn't see anything substantial from
> Hawaii. With the small radiant
> height of about 7 degrees at the peak (10:40 UT),
> poor LM5.3 and a high
> population index (I suppose *at least* 2.3) you
> really shouldn't have expected
> much. If ZHR was 2800, then about 2 Leo/min
> should've been expected at the peak,
> 4 per min if ZHR was 6000. With the rapid decline in
> ZHR after the peak the
> visual rates would've dropped very quickly despite
> increasing radiant height. Am
> I missing something here? Also, only one prediction
> was for ZHR 6000 with others
> being lower. Especially Esko Lyytinen's, who has so
> far made the most consistent
> predictions, was for 'only' ZHR 2800. 
>   Yes, the public perhaps shouldn't generally expect
> the numbers that are
> expected by astronomers. Norman McLeod said a couple
> of years ago that the
> public needs a much greater event in order to be
> satisified than astronomers.
> But in your case I would expect that you've taken
> all factors into account and
> did not expect 6000 Leo per hour over Hawaii? I
> don't want to flame you, but
> your anger seems, to me, somewhat unjustified?
> 
> Clear skies!
> 
> Jure A.
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