CAOSP abstracts, Volume: 42, No.: 1, year: 2012

Abstract: Photographic meteor heights of the Perseid meteoroid stream compiled in the IAU Meteor Data Center catalogue observed in 1939-1992, covering five solar activity cycles, are analyzed and their potential variation within a solar activity cycle is investigated and discussed.

Of the 673 Perseids selected from the catalogue, the variations of the heights for three independent sets: 524 Perseids with known information on both heights, 397 with known brightness and 279 with the geocentric velocity within a one sigma limit, were investigated. The observed beginning and endpoint heights of the Perseids, normalized for the geocentric velocity and the absolute photographic magnitude correlated with the solar activity represented by the relative sunspot number R, do not exhibit a variation consistent with the solar activity cycle.

The result, confirmed also by the correlation analysis, is derived for the mass ranges of larger meteoroids observed by photographic techniques. However, a possible variation of meteor heights controlled by solar activity for smaller meteoroids detected by television and radio techniques remains still open and has to be verified.