by ariheinze » Mon Oct 23, 2006 6:34 pm
As Angustaff says, all of Orion is in the picture, including RIgel to the lower right of Orion's
belt. Sirius is also there below left of the belt. I believe Procyon is the bright star near the
left edge of the picture a bit above the centerline..
As for the radiant, I agree the meteor lines converge rather far to the north, above
Betelgeuse it seems. The lens has a lot of edge aberration (stars near the edge of field
are lines, not points), and also a lot of distortion. The distortion makes it hard for me to tell, for
example, if Aldebaran or Castor and Pollux are shown. The distortion could make the
radiant appear north of its true position. Anyway, radiants are only approximate: the real physical situation is that the Earth is plowing through a sweeping cloud of orbiting sand. Individual sand grains can differ a bit in their orbits, and the apparent radiant can change
a little from night to night.
As Angustaff says, all of Orion is in the picture, including RIgel to the lower right of Orion's
belt. Sirius is also there below left of the belt. I believe Procyon is the bright star near the
left edge of the picture a bit above the centerline..
As for the radiant, I agree the meteor lines converge rather far to the north, above
Betelgeuse it seems. The lens has a lot of edge aberration (stars near the edge of field
are lines, not points), and also a lot of distortion. The distortion makes it hard for me to tell, for
example, if Aldebaran or Castor and Pollux are shown. The distortion could make the
radiant appear north of its true position. Anyway, radiants are only approximate: the real physical situation is that the Earth is plowing through a sweeping cloud of orbiting sand. Individual sand grains can differ a bit in their orbits, and the apparent radiant can change
a little from night to night.