[新闻] 3月1日南半球可能观测到一次新流星雨爆发。

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This Is SKY & TELESCOPE's AstroAlert for Meteors
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There is a possible meteor outburst predicted to occur at 21:54
Universal Time on March 1, 2003. Unfortunately it will only be
observable from the Southern Hemisphere as the radiant is located at
RA 013, Dec -64 (near the fourth magnitude star Zeta Tucanae). The
outburst is related to particles from comet C/1976 D1 (Comet Bradfield).

The moon will be near its new phase so there will be no lunar
interference. Considering darkness and radiant altitude, South America
appears to be the most suitable place for observations.

As Esko Lyytinen mentions below, any activity from this source should be
bright, but the strongest portion of the display will last only ten
minutes.

Esko Lyytinen further comments: "This is indeed considered very reliable
as to the close encounter of the trail. The thing that may make this
suspicious is the dimness of the parent comet as compared to the parent
comets of Lyrids and Aurigids (known long period comet with showers and
outbursts observed).

The trail stretching can be considered to be proportional to the
semimajor-axis powered to 2.5. With this comet it is about 100, that is
ten times bigger than with the Leonids, so the trail is about 300 times
more stretched than a 1-rev. Leonid-trail, making it less dense by about
that much. Because of quite central (about 10000km, inside the Earth
orbit) and 1-rev and high inclination, the outburst width (in time) is
expected to be very small maybe only about ten minutes the strongest
phase (might be even shorter). The meteors are expected to be relatively
bright, probably mostly NOT real fire-balls (there may well be those
among) but not dim either. Because of the brief observing period, even
possible moderate rates may not give many meteors. Don't expect a storm.
Because of the stretching by long period, a storm level is very very
improbable.

It is impossible to give any rates-prediction, but if one tries to
observe, I recommend to try to get an as wide a coverage as possible
even close to horizon, for the short time interval. The timing is
expected to be accurate to 15 minutes or probably even better, but be
ready for a possible little more error in the timing. The radiant is
above horizon also in South Africa, but about only ten degrees, I
recall. Radio M-scatter observers in the South are advised to keep their
receivers ready.

I think that in principle m-scatter is very suitable for recording this.
You only have to be where the radiant is (well) above horizon,
preferably quite high. Although I have not figured out the exact limits,
South America is suitable, the more southern (and western), the better.
Could be also recorded from New Zealand and South-Eastern Australia and
from South Africa (these with relatively low radiant). Of course
Antarctic would be fine, if there were an observer and a suitable
transmitter could be found.

For visual observations at the best places (for this) in the Antarctic,
the radiant is quite high, but the Sun only about 11 deg below horizon
which is not bad either for the expected non-dim meteors. I far as I
know, there is near the best location (in Antarctic) at least one
Russian base, but hardly any interested observer(?)

I hope that something will be observed."

If anyone happens to witness any activity from this source please share
your results with the American Meteor Society at lunsford@amsmeteors.org
and with Sky & Telescope at observers@skypub.com

Clear Skies!

Robert Lunsford
AMS Operations Manager