[meteorite-list] Andromedids and Mazapil - Part 2 of 2

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:48:14 2004
Message-ID: <3BDD69CE.2D90938C_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Letters: Andromedid Centennial

(Sky & Telescope, November, 1985, p. 404)

This year brings the 100th anniversary of the last great Andromedid
meteor shower, on November 27, 1885. It has received less attention
than some other 19th-century spectaculars, but in at least one respect
- the frequency of meteors - it was possibly the greatest such event in
history. The Andromedids were seen as an evening shower from Europe
and America in 1885 but put on a better show at the former location. To
the east of Europe, where they were a morning event and the advancing
side of the Earth faced the incoming stream, an even better show would
be expected, as reports from East Africa and India testify.
The March 4, 1886, issue of Nature includes a letter from an observer
at Bagamoyo, East Africa. He stated that "putting the average fall at
eight per second, which he believes to be below the actual number, the
number for the twelve hours of the night would be about 350,000." This
is even greater than the 240,000 seen from Boston, Massachusetts, during
the Leonid storm of 1833.
In the English Mechanic and World of Science for April 2, 1886, an
observer signing himself "D.W.B." reported from northeast of the Bay
of Bengal. He stated that "the meteors were continuous from 7 pm to 2
am, the greatest number being visible about 10 pm when I reckoned there
were from 600 to 1,000 meteors per minute. None seemed particularly
brilliant though the track of one in the sky was visible six minutes to
the naked eye and 15 minutes with a pair of binoculars." The rate of
1,000 per minute was comparable to that of the Leonid meteor storms
observed in America in 1833 and 1966. (A. Maclean, 22 Holly Bush Lane,
Amblecote, Stourbridge, West Midlands, England).
Received on Mon 29 Oct 2001 09:38:06 AM PST