2nd June Meteor Shower !??

[chrisyeo]

I just got more details of a most incredible story. Apparently, my brother and his friends were at Sentosa's Palawan beach on the night of 2nd of June, and they saw a meteor shower.. no, storm!

The details are so incredible that they seem true! He said that just after 1 am, they started seeing lights that looked like planes traveling across the sky, and then the whole sky started filling up with them. There was a initial peak of >60 -at one time!- and then less but in total lasting almost an hour.

They were all white in colour ("the colour of stars"), "some were dimmer some were brighter", with very slow speeds (like airplanes), and travelling left from the beach (i.e. SouthEast).

The sky condition was not good, and with passing cloud ("only a few stars were visible, and one bright one overhead (Jupiter)". So the meteors (if they really are meteors) were all over mag 3!

All this seems extraordinary, but the details coincide with a predicted meteor shower from Comet 73P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 3. June 2nd is within the predicted time of the T-Herculid shower, as well as the extremely slow meteor speed, and the radiant is in the NW at that time.

Could it really be?

All this, is of course really exciting, but as it is a 2nd hand account, I don't want to get all overexcited over it. I've tried to hold out for other possibilities, but I really can't think of other possible things that he and his friends saw.

Does anyone know what I can do with this information to verify it?

I've asked him to get a more precise time fix, and to write out an account.

Best regards,
Chris

[Canopus Lim]

Wow greater than 60! This must be really rare with 'meteor starved' Singapore! Usually when there are meteor showers I only see a few probably about 5 and those are real bright ones that managed to get pass the huge mass of clouds.. somehow meteor showers in Singapore happens when it is so cloudy and the bright city lights cut off many of them too.

[weixing]

Hi,
Hmm.... that interesting... may be you can send a email to the IMO (International Meteor Organization) mailing list to check with other observer in other country ( http://www.imo.net/imo/list ) after you had compile all the information. Or may be you can call our own Meteor expert - ykchia to check whether did he get anything on his Meteor video camera on that day.

Have a nice day.

[ykchia]

Hi folks:

Rainer from IMO just wrote to me to verify. I checked my recording but did not find anything strange in term of frequency. But my camera was south facing. Perhaps you can provide me more information like the direction. From what bearing to what bearing and do they seems to come from one region of the sky and roughly the location of this spot.

" and travelling left from the beach (i.e. SouthEast). " - from what bearing to what bearing"

Thanks
rgds
ykchia