(meteorobs) Handbook for Visual Meteor Observers

[Arlene Carol]

Well, this bears asking then...exactly when do you think this meteor
book will be available and how can I get a copy? Is it something I can
receive via email since I sort of live off the beaten track out here
in Western Turkey?

This book sounds like something from which I certainly can draw benefit.

Please, more details.

Thank you,

Arlene
south of Troy 


On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:19:08 -0500, Bias, Peter V <pbias at flsouthern.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> There have been quite a few inquiries about the book, so I thought I
> would let everyone know what is going on.
> 
> I have put together a meteor book that is for amateurs, a little like
> Neil Bone's nice little meteor book.  However, I have only one chapter
> devoted solely to meteor showers, and it covers only the main meteor
> showers such as Perseids, Geminids, Leonids, Taurids, etc.  The rest of
> the book tries to explain some things that I didn't truly understand for
> a long time; things like gradual radiant shifts, changing meteor rates
> as the radiant rises, radiant position relative to the real location of
> the meteors in space, formation of dust trails, solar radiation impacts
> on meteoroids, forecasting meteor shower strength, and lots of others.
> Most of these topics are not in Bone's book, nor in Gary Kronk's or Mark
> Littmann's. In fact, it is almost like a compendium of topics that all
> of these books leave out but are nevertheless interesting or new.
> Because people that are part of this forum are generally very
> knowledgeable about meteors (some professionals, receive WGN, are
> math-oriented, etc.), it is possible that some (most?) will not benefit
> much from the book, I really don't know; but newer amateurs will
> probably get a large amount of information that would be difficult to
> quickly pull together.
> There is a little math, but mostly a lot of diagrams to try to really
> explain the topics.
> 
> In answer to some of the other questions:  No, I did not try Sky
> Publishing out of regard for Neil Bone and the fact that the book is
> somewhat (although really not much) like his.  Because my book is so
> different than Gary Kronk's excellent book, I did try his publisher,
> Enslow, but was rejected.  Several other publishers also rejected the
> book.
> 
> I will ultimately publish the book on-demand.  Clearly I won't make any
> money on it (that never was an issue); in fact, it will probably cost me
> a few hundred dollars to get it out there.  Still, I learned a lot and
> really enjoyed putting it together. I think it will be beneficial to
> many amateurs trying to learn more about meteors and meteor showers.
> 
>   Pete Bias, (economist, not astronomer)
>   Florida Southern College
>   Lakeland Florida   USA
> 
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