An artificial meteors database as a test for the presence of weak showers

Abstract

We have constructed an artificial meteor database resembling in all details the real sample collected by the observers of the Comets and Meteors Workshop in the years 1996-1999. The artificial database includes the sporadic meteors and also events from the following showers: Perseids, Aquarid complex, Alpha Capricornids, July Pegasids and Sagittarids. This database was searched for the presence of the radiants of two weak showers: Alpha Cygnids and Delphinids. The lack of these radiants in the artificial database and their existence in the real observations suggests that Alpha Cygnids and Delphinids are the real showers and their radiants could not be formed as an effect of intersections of back prolongated paths of meteors belonging to other showers.