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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Geminids in Jakarta, Indonesia



Hi,
I'm not aware of anyone making changes (except perhaps of a few minutes)
to the predicted time of the 2002 Leonid peaks.  Rates are always an
issue and I suspect most observers are seduced by the reported errors in
ZHR calculations that do not include a full error propogation for
all factors that are used in the determination of ZHRs.  I have never
accepted formal statistical errors even when I was the JAS meteor section
director in the UK.  I considered a second significant figure in many ZHRs
as questionable.  With masses of observations, a second significant
figure is reasonable, but I don't believe it.

The 2 comets I refer to were discovered about 70 years ago and about
10 years ago.  The former was when someone trying to confirm a new comet
was sent the wrong coordinates and believed they had confirmed a new
comet, but had in fact discovered a different one.  The other was when
the Shoemakers had the wrong mean anomaly in their orbit for a comet
Levy.  Instead of observing comet Levy, they found another one following
comet Levy by the exact amount of their error in mean anomaly!  The comets
has split on a previous occasion.  Gary Kronk and others will have this
info at their fingertips.  Perhaps Hoenig is another but I know nothing of
it's discovery circumstance.

Cheers, Rob


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