This meteor shower is apparently only visible with some optical aid, as no
visual or photographic detection has ever been made.
The discovery of the Epsilon Aquilids should be credited to B. L. Kashcheyev
and V. N. Lebedinets (Kharkov Polytechnical Institute, USSR), who detected 17
radio meteors from this stream during May 4-27, 1960. They determined the date
of the nodal passage as May 17, at which time the radiant was located at RA=276
deg, DECL=+13 deg.
This stream was again detected in 1969, during the second session of the
Radio Meteor Project. Despite Zdenek Sekanina giving the duration of the Epsilon
Aquilids as May 19-21, it should be noted that the radar system at Havana,
Illinois, had been shut down during May 10-18, so earlier members might have
been missed. Sekanina gave the date of nodal passage as May 20.3, at which time
the radiant was at RA=284.1 deg, DECL=+15.5 deg. Both the date of nodal passage
and the radiant might have been altered had the radar been in operation during
mid-May.
Orbits computed from both sets of data are very similar and with their
semimajor axes both being less that 1 AU, they seem to hint that the body
responsible for the stream formation is moving in an Aten-class asteroid
orbit.
As noted earlier, no apparent visual observations of this stream appear in
any records of the last 150 years. The primary sources checked by the Author are
D1899, K1916, M1935, H1948 and over 6000 radiants of the American Meteor
Society. Photographic sources checked included W1954, MP1961 B1963, C1964,
BK1967 and C1977.