| Abstract: | Abstract— A time adjustment from the Earth's centre to the observer's location is quantified and shown to improve the residuals between the observed time of pronounced Leonid showers and the time calculated from perturbed dust trails. A correlation with the exact time of closest approach to the nominal dust trail orbit would allow a further improvement in the residuals. However, there is no evidence for such a correlation, which suggests that the dust trail cross section is substantially elongated within the orbital plane. These results indicate that approaches to dust trails within 0.0005 AU are predictable with an uncertainty of ～5 min. Application of this correction to satellites confirms the utility of two strategies to minimise the impact risk. The time adjustment could be applied to any meteor stream. |
