Prediction of the 2009 Leonids by J. Vaubaillon (IMCCE),
in collaboration with P. Jenniskens (SETI), J. Watanabe and M. Sato (NAOJ)
Introduction:For a general introduction to meteors see this page
The previous predictions posted earlier on on this page did not mention the presence of 2 Leonid trail in the vicinity of the Earth in Nov. 2009. There are indeed the 1466 trail and the 1533 each causing an outburst at roughly the same time (Nov. 17/11/2009 at 21:50 UT). In addition, the 1567 trail might cause a slight enhancement of activity on 17/11/2009 at 7:27 UT Below are the details for each trail. [url=]The situation in 2008[/url]Given the result of the 2008 Leonids campaign we can re-consider the predictions of the 2009 Leonids caused by the 1466 trail. The revised post-prediction for 2008 were the following:
Year
2008
TraiL
1466
Nrev
16
Time of max:
17/11/2008 at 0:54 (UT)
Sol.Long.
234.9233 deg
dist (au)
0.003683
DeltaA (au)
0.07617
f_M
0.377
ZHR
130 /hr
Observations show that the maximum occured ~1hr later than expected, meaning that the trail was not located where we thought it was. The ZHR was close to what was forecasted. Note the high f_M value, coming from the perturbations of the planets, and Jupiter in particular.
The Situation in 2009The general location of the streams is illustrated below