Astroblog: A New Meteor Shower in Pavo?

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

A New Meteor Shower in Pavo?

The Southern Sky, facing due south at 11 pm with the proposed radiant circled (click to enlarge).

John Drummond has reported that there may be a new meteor shower in Pavo, from Comet Levy (P/1991 L3), possibly visible over the next few days. The peak of the shower will be on August 31 and September 1, and the radiant is situated roughly between alpha and beta Pavonis (see the map on the right). A full sky map with the radiant shown is here.

How many meteors can you expect to see? Possibly none, maybe one or two per hour, maybe more. It's best to view after 11 pm, when the Moon will interfere less and the radiant is still high.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 7:09 am

Comments:

hi i just saw i dont know what but it was in my language a shooting star in the western sky at around 6pm in Brisbane.
It was twilight the object was the biggest i have ever seen, with a 'jet stream that was blackish and the object itself was eliptical in shape and quite bright and rough looking. It burnt out at around 30 degrees off the horizon. Do you know what it was? it was v cool

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:56 pm

I need to know some information first. Was it headed away from or towards the horizon, was it moving fast or slowly?

If it was moving away from the horizon, or if it was moving sloly, it sounds like a jet contrail being lit up by the sunlight over the horizon. This often gives an eliptical "cigar shaped" intense area of light, with a dimmer tail.

If it was moving fast and towards the horizon, then that was most likely a fireball, a large meteor. However, these are are typically circular or point like than oval, and their trails are bright too.

# posted by

Ian Musgrave : 10:16 pm

thanks for responding.
it was a fast moving object moving towards the horizon, like a flare.
was it anything special? it was v big!
thanks again deb never done a blog before so hope this gets to you

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:44 am

Okay, then it was most likely a fireball, a meteor of unusual size and brightness. Most meteors are about the size of a grain of sand or smaller. Fire balls are caused by larger objects, and are much rarer.

# posted by

Ian Musgrave : 7:58 am

Hi, regarding the post from "anonymous" posted 9:56 pm...was that related to 20th November 2007? Cos if it was I saw it too.

It looked like a huge shooting star...very close to the earth, moving very quickly towards the horizon. The object didn't appear to be elliptical to me though. It was jagged (like a pic a child draws of the sun). I didn't know where to find out more (if anyone else reported it) or where to report it. It was quite impressive! I got quite a shock and was expecting to hear an explosion or something! Gill

# posted by

Unknown : 2:13 am