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Re: (meteorobs) Persistent meteor trains
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce McCurdy" Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Persistent meteor trains
> I also was fortunate enough to catch this dust train -- and thanks for
> the correct terminology Ed -- some 8 hours after the Tagish Lake fireball.
> An amazing sight. According to our alt-az calculations at the time, the
> train had drifted down the Rockies to somewhere in the general vicinity of
> Banff, AB, many hundreds of km from Tagish Lake and fortuitously aligned
> with the setting sun from Edmonton's perspective. (Tagish Lake: 59º.7 N
> 134º.2 W; Banff: 51°.2 N., 115°.6 W; Edmonton 53°.6 N., 113°.4 W. At 17:40
> MST the Sun's azimuth was 245°, 7 degrees below the horizon.)
>
> It was *not* a noctilucent cloud by the usual definition of that term,
> we have observed those plenty here in Edmonton, and it was interesting to
> compare the similarities and differences of structure and colour. I had
not
> heard of the fireball/meteorite at that point, and was at a loss to
explain
> how "sort of" NLCs could appear in the south in the winter. We were later
> informed by some expert or other that the correct term for the formation
we
> saw was a "nacreous cloud" (root word: nacre, mother of pearl).
>
> Photos of that dust train can be seen at this site:
> http://phobos.astro.uwodot ca/~pbrown/tagish/dustcloud.html
>
Bruce:
Thanks for your description and comments. I only wish I had been there
to see it.
My comments were based on the url noted above. The term "nacreous cloud" is
a new one to me. The above site still calls it a "noctilucent" cloud. I'll
have to ask Peter Brown about this. I hope he will provide more details and
an explanation for this extremely long duration event.
Ed
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