The Sociedad de Observadores de Meteoros y Cometas de España  is a group of astronomers and dedicated observers of meteors, comets and asteroids. Since its foundation in 1987, SOMYCE has been one of the most active groups in the field of visual meteor observations. The efforts of SOMYCE members, both observationally and theoretically, have resulted in several papers published in the professional and amateur literature.

General Information

    SOMYCE commissions are independent working groups which perform observations and analysis of specific events in meteor and comet astronomy. Nowadays five commissions are fully operational (visual, video, photographic, fireballs and comets). Data from other organizations or non-SOMYCE members are most welcome!

         COMMISSIONS

    Here we give a list of some of our contributions to meteor and cometary science. This list is by no means complete, particularly the section of non-refereed papers.

Refereed papers:

1. Kidger, M.R., 1993, The 1991 outburst of comet P/Metcalf-Brewington: a study of the light curve, Earth, Moon and Planets 63, p. 179-185.
2. Kidger, M.R., 1993, Some comments on the identification of medieval meteor showers recorded by the Arabs, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 34, p. 331.
3. Bellot Rubio, L.R., 1994, Dependence of the population index on the radiant zenithal distance, WGN (the Journal of the International Meteor Organization) 22, 13.
4. Bellot Rubio, L.R., 1994, Spatial number densities and errors from photographic meteor observations under very high activity, WGN (the Journal of the International Meteor Organization) 22, 118.
5. Kidger, M.R., 1994, The Frequency of Appearance of Bright Naked-Eye Comets Since 1750, Earth, Moon and Planets 66, p. 231.
6. Bellot Rubio, L.R., 1995, Effects of a dependence of meteor brightness on the entry angle, Astronomy & Astrophysics 301, p. 602.
7. Bellot Rubio, L.R., 1995, Quasicontinuous fragmentation parameters and densities of meteoroids from photographic observations, submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics.
8. Kidger, M.R., 1995, Comet Hale-Bopp (1995 O1): possible photometric evolution, in press, Earth, Moon and Planets.
9. Kidger M.R, Serra-Ricart M., Bellot Rubio L.R., Casas R., , 1996, Evolution of a spiral jet in the inner coma of Comet Hale-Bopp (1995 O1), Astrophysical Journal 461, L119.

Non-refereed papers:

1. Bellot Rubio L.R., 1990, The Alpha Capricornids in 1988 and 1989, WGN 18, p. 26-28.
    
2. Bellot Rubio L.R., 1991, The 1991 Aquarids and Perseids from Spain, WGN 19, p. 213.
    
3. Bellot Rubio L.R., 1992, 1992 Quadrantid and Coma Berenicid activity in Spain, WGN 20, p. 93-94.
    
4. Bellot Rubio L.R., 1992, On the presence of trains in meteor streams, WGN 20, p. 140-144.
    
5. Bellot Rubio L.R., 1995, Determination of fragmentation parameters from photographic and video data, Proceedings of the IMC 1995.
6. Bellot Rubio L.R., Reyes Andrés F., 1991, Visual double station observations of Taurids and Leonids in 1990, WGN 19, p. 210-211.
    
7. Bellot Rubio L.R., Román A., Rute A., 1993, Plotting errors in FIDAC data and consequences for shower association, WGN 21, p. 279-282.
    
8. Kidger M.R., 1993, Comet P/Swift-Tuttle and the Perseids, WGN 21, p. 121-129.
    
9. Kidger M.R., Casas R., Sánchez J., 1990, 444 Gyptis: a double asteroid?, Astron. Now 4, p. 12-13.
    
10. Méndez Álvarez J.E., 1995, Spanish Telescopic Observations, 1995, WGN 23, p. 97.
     
11. Trigo J.M., 1989, The Epsilon Perseids in 1987 and 1988, WGN 17, p. 156-158.
     
12. Trigo J.M., 1990, The 1990 Lyrids from Spain, WGN 18, p. 165-166.
     
13. Trigo J.M., 1991, The Alpha Capricornids and Delta Aquarids South in 1989, WGN 19, p. 60-61.
     
14. Trigo J.M., 1991, The 1989 Eta Aquarids in Spain, Uruguay and Bolivia, WGN 19, p. 61-64.
     
15. Trigo J.M., 1992, Spanish visual observations in the winter 1991-1992, WGN 20, p. 92.
     
16. Trigo J.M., 1994, Determination of Spatial Number Density from Photography, in: Roggemans P. (ed.), Proceedings of the IMC 1993, International Meteor Organization, Belgium, 77.
 

17. Benítez O., 2001, Video Meteor Observations from the Canary Islands: first results and prospects, WGN 29-1/2, p. 37

18. Orlando Benítez Sánchez and Francisco Ocaña González. “A fireball analysis from Spanish meteor observation” WGN 32:1, febrero 2004. pp.29

    
     

 to INDEX

    The fourmonthly journal Meteors is published by SOMYCE and has a mean circulation of about 50 issues. It is the most important channel of communication for SOMYCE members. Meteors was first edited in 1987 and, up to now, 65 issues have been published. The journal is written in Spanish, but English abstracts are provided for each article. Meteors is sent free of charge to SOMYCE members and meteor organizations around the world.

    Our journal contains research papers as well as more introductory articles for beginners. The various sections of Meteors are:

• News. Here outstanding news about SOMYCE or special scientific events are commented on.

   

• Letters to Meteors. This section allows the observers to express their personal opinions and points of view.

   

• Papers. The core of Meteors. Here we publish research and educational articles on meteors, comets and asteroids.

   

• Local groups In this section, each group of observers let other SOMYCE members know about its history, members, activities and main results.

   

• Reports of the Commisions. Usually, each issue of Meteors contains the reports of activity of several commisions. In these reports the directors give an account of the observations received and a list with the contributing observers. Sometimes, preliminar results are presented.

   

• Ephemerids. A very important aim of Meteors is to keep the observers informed on all events of interest in the field of comets and meteors. Each two months, Meteor publishes notes for the observers, a radiant list of active showers and ephemerids of visible comets.

    The editorial board of Meteors wants to encourage you to submit papers or photographs of meteors and comets. Any contribution can be sent to Orlando Benítez Sánchez.

    Finally, you might want to read the abstracts of the papers published in the last issues of Meteors. This information is  available too.

"Especial Bólidos y Meteoritos"

ISSN: 1137-9111 Orlando Benítez 2003 (ed)

"Dossier de Observaciones españolas de Bólidos"

 ISSN: 1137-9111Orlando Benítez and Francisco Ocaña (ed)

"Observación de Meteoros con Intensificador de Imagen"

 O. Benítez, SOMYCE, 2002, p. 177 ISBN 84-607-3819-1

"Manual de Observaciones Visuales de Meteoros"

 L. R. Bellot Rubio, 1995, p. 104.

"Introducción a la Teoría Física de los Meteoros"

 L. R. Bellot Rubio, 1992, p. 204.

"Manual de Observaciones Telescópicas de Meteoros"

 J. E. Méndez Álvarez, 1994, p. 140.

Archivos de Observaciones de SOMYCE (Database in DVD).

    Recently, SOMYCE (Sociedad de Observadores de Meteoros y Cometas de España) has edited the first DVD edition with all the Spanish meteor observations: visual scanned observations, video images with MetRec, photographic images, radio counts and telescopic charts. All, collected in a case with four DVD. This data base store about 17.2 Gb.

    We have edited a limited edition of 100 copies to send to SOMYCE members, Astronomical Societies of Spain and IMO members. Unfortunately, the cost of this edition it has done impossible to send a copy to all the IMO members, and therefore we have made a selection, and only 21 cases have been sent to IMO members.

    This information can be free copied for personal use, divulgation, amateurs and researchers. If you write a paper, this information can be taken indicating the autor and the reference: “Archivos de observaciones de la Sociedad de Observadores de Meteoros y Cometas de España –SOMYCE-, 1ª Edición, octubre 2006.”

    Briefly, we resume the information available in each DVD:

DVD1: Visual Meteor Database from 1987 to 1995. All this observations are in JPG images. Are the original reports with data and charts scanned with great effort during last five years. The key is:

DDddMMAAAA-----aNdN.jpg

ej: 2627091998BENORp1d1

DDdd: day

MM: month

AAAA: year

-----: IMO Code

“a” can be:

p: report

c: chart

r: summary

e: train report

NdN: “1d1” or “1d5” tell us how many report, or charts are in the observation.

Photographic meteor database from 1998, and 1999 Leonids and a lot of images classified by months. Some of them are not data, but we collect by historical reasons. Data are in txt or excel files.

DVD2: Comet observations, the rest of Photographic meteor database from November, August and December months. Video Meteor data base from camera TIMES 4 and TIMES 5 with full frame images. If you need a complete data in postdate format, we recommend download the updates files from IMO web site www.imo.net or www.metrec.org

DVD 3: Fireballs report form 1982 to 2003, some photos, and the Telescopic database (charts and reports) All codes are similar to the Visual Scanned reports. Video Data base of TIMES 4: August 2000, 2001 (complete, except March, August, October and December)

DVD 4: Visual Meteor Data Base (1985 and 1986 reports), the rest of the Photographic database and Video observations of TIMES 4 camera (Intensified camera, TIMES 5 is a Watec 902-H)

As you can see, there is a lot of useful information for the meteor observer. If need copy all o part of this information you can contact with us in archivosobservaciones -at-somyce.org More information about SOMYCE can be found in our web site www.somyce.org

References

[1] Trigo Rodríguez J. M. y Camarasa Yuste M., Spain: Heyday of Meteor Investigation, WGN 18:1, febrero 1990, págs. 24-26.
[2] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 1: 1988 Visual Meteor and Fireball Data, WGN.
[3] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 2: 1989 Visual Meteor and Fireball Data, WGN.
[4] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 3: 1990 Visual Meteor and Fireball Data, WGN.
[5] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 4: 1991 Visual Meteor and Fireball Data, WGN, 
[6] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 5: 1992 Visual Meteor Data, WGN, 1993, pp. 2.
[7] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 6: 1993 Visual Meteor Data, WGN, 1994, pp. 2.
[8] SOMYCE, Archivo de Observaciones de Meteoros 1994, La Laguna,1995, pp.3
[9] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 7: 1994 Visual Meteor Data, WGN, 1995, pp.. 2.
[10] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 8: 1995 Visual Meteor Data, WGN, 1996, pp. 2.
[11] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 9: 1996 Visual Meteor Data, WGN, 1997, pp. 2.
[12] International Meteor Organization, Report Series Vol. 10: 1997 Visual Meteor Data, WGN, 1998, pp. 2.
[13] Luis Ramón Bellot Rubio. Divulgar la ciencia promoviendo la participación activa. Resultados de un experimento en Astrofísica. Ponencia presentada en el I^er Congreso de la Comunicación (Granada)

Last change,  January 8 ^Th, 2007