FreeLists / az-observing / [AZ-Observing] Meteor Resource

["Tom Polakis" <polakis@xxxxxxxx>]

If you're interested in meteor showers, and particularly the history of
their study, Gary Kronk's Comets and Meteor Showers page at
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/index.html contains some interesting reading. 

His write-ups often include orbital elements of the parent comet. 
Plotting the orbits of the comet and the Earth on desktop planetarium
software, it becomes apparent why some showers produce slow meteors and
others fast ones.  The location of the radiant also falls out of this
simulation.  If the cometary debris were stationary, the radiant would be
located where the ecliptic crosses the meridian at sunrise, i.e. the
direction Earth is traveling.  Since the cometary debris is orbiting the
sun at a good clip, the location of the radiant is actually found by a
vector sum of the motions of the Earth and debris trail.

Tom

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