Although there was no meteor storm (defined as >1000
meteors/hour), we did experience a quite spectacular
meteor shower this year. The graph below is
a representation of equivalent visual meteor influx (using
corrected Zenithal Hourly Rates), and was drawn using
Learmonth observations and preliminary International Meteor Organisation data.
The curve assymetry shows clearly a fast rise
to maximum with a slower decay. The peak
influx was a little over 500/hr at around
0300 UT on November 17, and the half
width of the peak about 10 hours. All
of these values were substantially different from those
predicted. The most quoted computer simulations, form the
University of Western Ontario, had a peak flux
of 1200/hr, a peak time of 17/1920 UT
and a half width of an hour or
two.
Observers from Jordan through Europe to the Canary
Islands were the best placed to see the
pinnacle of this shower. However, observers from all
around the world with clear skies were delighted
by the larger proportion of bright meteors and
long enduring trains. At Learmonth the brightest meteor
seen was a magnitude -14 fireball, brighter than
the full moon, and the longest train persisted
for 10 minutes.
Hopefully the wealth of observations will help the
computer modellers refine models of the stream of
debris left by comet Tempel -Tuttle during its
perihelion passage last February. However, even these results
represent only a very limited spatial sample of
that required to forecast with much improved accuracy.
Educational