(meteorobs) FW: 5th magnitude "ceiling"

[Wes Stone]

> OK, looks like mistakenly sent messages are catching, or I just need more 
> sleep. Let's try that again.
>
>> Richard,
>>
>> Robert Lunsford gives a good explanation of the difficulty of seeing a 
>> faint moving object. The faintest meteor observed will always be 
>> significantly brighter than the limiting magnitude. That said, I had 
>> excellent skies this weekend (as good as 7.2 near the center of my field) 
>> and saw four sixth-magnitude meteors in 7.25 hours of observing. These 
>> all occurred in the constellation where my vision was centered (either 
>> Taurus or Gemini).
>
> Meteor magnitude estimation is done on-the-fly, and is less accurate and 
> less precise than limiting magnitude estimation. One irregularity I notice 
> in my observations is that on three out of four mornings I reported fewer 
> +1s than 0s (and then a big jump in +2s). This despite having good 
> reference stars available for these magnitudes.
>
> Clear skies.
>
> --
> Wes Stone
> Chiloquin, OR
>
> >
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Richard Taibi" <rjtaibi at hotmail.com>
>> To: <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 2:28 PM
>> Subject: (meteorobs) FW: 5th magnitude "ceiling"
>>
>>
>>> Let me complete my thought!  I sent the original message below when I 
>>> meant to "save draft."
>>>
>>> My point was that inspecting all of the reports observers posted, and 
>>> for those who reported nearly +7 magnitude skies, no one reported seeing 
>>> a sixth magnitude meteor.  To be sure, there were many fifth magnitudes. 
>>> It strikes me as being odd that there was almost a two-magnitude margin 
>>> between the faintest observed meteors and the limiting magnitude.
>>>
>