(meteorobs) Quads and Questions

Richard Taibi rjtaibi at hotmail.com
Wed Jan 4 12:33:57 EST 2006


Brother McCurdy,

I read your note with empathy and sympathy: I too do some of the delayed 
reaction responding you describe.  I'm about to be 60 (ouch!) but I'm not 
sure the delay is age or visual acuity-related.  I think dissociation is a 
more likely explanation for our problem.  Dissociation is what occurs in a 
boring class when your mind wanders, and like it does during a 
low-meteor-number session.  The problem is worse with bright moonlight, 
there's even less to keep your attention so your attention "wanders."  The 
blank or bland sky is a great "blank screen" to hypnotize yourself with.  
Hypnosis is a focussed form of dissociation.  The good news is that we can 
and DO "snap ourselves out of it."  So, for awhile again, until we get 
bored, we can focus with razor-sharp attention.  I think it might help to 
bring some mild distraction on anticipated low meteor-frequency nights, like 
a radio, to keep sharper.  Of course too, getting up and walking around 
occasionally can help.

I wonder what our peers out there do to keep on the ball?

Best wishes, Rich

>From: bmccurdy at telusplanet.net
>Reply-To: Global Meteor Observing Forum <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
>To: Global Meteor Observing Forum <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
>Subject: (meteorobs) Quads and Questions
>Date: Wed,  4 Jan 2006 03:14:43 -0800
>
>
>    My luck continues to run very cold. I don't have to tell the denizens 
>of
>this fine list about the havoc wreaked by moonlight in 2005, as the 
>Orionids,
>Leonids and Geminids all featured a very fat, very high Moon. But beyond 
>that
>I had very poor luck with observing conditions:  the Perseids spoiled by 
>cloud
>within an hour; the Draconids wiped out; the others yielding low,
>scientfically worthless counts under various thicknesses of cloud, haze, 
>and
>cirrus, all illumintaed by brilliant moonlight. I'm not sure I logged a
>hundred meteors in 2005, whereas I easily had ten times that in 2004 in a
>similar number of sessions.
>
>    With the turn of the calendar I hoped my luck would change. Luna would 
>not
>be a factor for the 2006 Quadrantids and I was raring to go. With the peak
>scheduled to occur at 11:20 MST on the 3rd, I figured that if I waited into
>the wee hours I would at least be climbing onto one of the shower's narrow
>shoulders as the radiant climbed the sky. So I waited during a beautifully
>clear evening, and finally headed out after 1 a.m. with my son Kevin. By 
>the
>time we finished the half-hour drive to the site southwest of Edmonton, the
>cirrus was already building ominously in the west and passing overhead in
>layers ranging from almost transparent to annoying. There were also patches 
>of
>ice fog in the chilly (minus 11 C.) conditions. We could see the brighter
>stars in most directions, but the limiting magnitude could be 5 here and 3
>there and something different in both places a minute from now. So
>unfortunately, our counts were very low, and again useless.
>
>    I did have the pleasure of spotting my very first Eclipticid, within a
>minute of starting my first bin at 09:00 UT. Am I the first to report one? 
>:)
>But beyond that, pickings were very slim indeed, three Quadrantids (mags 3, 
>1,
>and -2) and two sporadics in 90 minutes of Tiff (INeffective observing 
>time).
>By son was lucky enough to spot an orange fireball with two explosion 
>points
>soaring parallel to the SW horizon, in the treetops about ten degrees up,
>which was accompanied by an exactly simultaneous outburst from our car 
>radio.
>Otherwise his counts were as desultory as mine. The radio burst into song 
>once
>a minute or so to confirm there was something happening up there, visual
>evidence to the contrary.
>    ***
>
>    Now the question, which concerns perception and which I am almost 
>reluctant
>to bring up. My visual acuity has really gone south in the last few years 
>(I'm
>50), to the point where I can't read anything but signs and headlines 
>without
>optical aid; I'm seriously handicapped at the Observatory when it comes to
>focussing telescopes for the public. But I'm also beginning to doubt my 
>mental
>focus as well. In many of my recent meteor observing sessions, especially 
>the
>slow ones with low counts (which is to say, most of them) I have registered 
>a
>few faint meteors in the "past tense". It's like they're so natural, I 
>simply
>don't react to them; then a couple seconds later I (might) go "hey wait a
>minute ..." By then I'm seriously doubting whether I saw a faint meteor or
>simply an internal reflection of the death of another faint neuron!
>
>    Often the delayed-perception memory is linear, and frequently enough it
>points back to that night's radiant. In last night's case, it was a 
>sporadic
>coming in towards the Twins; after a couple seconds I simply said to Kevin 
>"I
>think I'm seeing things", but he surprised me by describing it! Even though 
>he
>too hadn't reacted to it at the time. Which was reassuring to some extent, 
>but
>I'm sure I miss or discount more of these than I convince myself to count, 
>and
>I'm seriously beginning to wonder if I need to recalibrate my personal
>baseline.
>
>    I wonder if others on this list have experience with what I call "deja 
>vu
>observing", and how do/can you deal with it? Can I simply blame it on
>deteriorating vision, or is the only cure a full frontal lobotomy?
>    ***
>
>    24 hours later, after an evening filled with determinedly clear skies 
>and
>other commitments, I went out on to my back deck much later tonight (2:15
>local time on the 4th) hoping to catch the receding shoulder of the Quads. 
>The
>clouds returned within 15 minutes -- did I mention my luck has been 
>terrible? -
>- but I did catch one beautiful zeroeth mag Quad streaking above the Little
>Dipper. A small but much-appreciated reward of my fourth Quad for two
>evenings' aborted efforts.
>
>    Bruce
>    *****
>
>
>---
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