METEOR-SHOWER RADIANT POSITIONS AND STRUCTURES AS DETERMINED FROM SINGLE STATION VIDEO OBSERVATIONS

Single station video observations of meteors can be used for the preci se determination of radiant positions of major and minor meteor shower s. Video systems combine large quantities of recorded events with high accuracies, and are therefore applied in the investigation of fine st ructures within the radiant. In the past four years, amateurs from the Archenhold-Obervatory Berlin have been operating the wide angle video system MO VLE. The maxima of several major meteor showers could be re corded. The video tapes were digitized and analysed on PCs. Using the Radiant software developed within the International Meteor Organizatio n, the position was determined of the Quadrantid (alpha = 229.4 degree s +/- 1.5 degrees, delta = + 49.7 degrees +/- 1.5 degrees), Lyrid (alp ha = 271.6 degrees +/- 1.5 degrees, delta = + 32.9 degrees +/- 1 degre es), Perseid (alpha = 46.0 degrees +/- 2 degrees, delta = + 57.7 degre es +/- 2 degrees), Orionid (alpha = 93.6 degrees + 1 degrees, delta = + 14.9 degrees +/- 1 degrees) and Leonid (alpha = 154.5 degrees +/- 2 degrees, delta = 21.4 degrees +/- 1 degrees) meteor shower radiants an d possible radiant fine structures searched for. The obtained radiant positions are in good agreement with the common values in the literatu re; no significant fine structures could be found. From the video reco rds of the 1995 alpha-Monocerotid outburst, a radiant at alpha = 117 d egrees +/- 3 degrees and delta = + 1 degrees +/- 2 degrees was derived , which proves older results to be in error by several degrees. (C) 19 97 Elsevier Science Ltd.