(meteorobs) Aurigid Laptop Observation Project

[meteors at eclipse.net]

Chris, One thing I don't see mentioned is that the time on your laptop
must be accurate to within a second before starting, otherwise the times
recorded by the program will be meaningless.

This means the users MUST calibrate their laptop clock immediately before
setting out to observe, as I have found such clock accuracy to be marginal
at best. Even my desktop computer's clock drifts a few seconds per day.
If a user has not cal'd their laptoip clock in a while, it could be off by
many minutes.

Please emphasize this, and suggest methods to time the laptop clock, or
the data will be meaningless for constructing a 3D/4D picture of the
event.

I'd also feel better if there were a method to record meteor magnitude,
and sky limiting magnitude conditions as well, otherwise reducing the data
to a ZHR will be impossible.

I am in NJ so it's a moot point for me, but I would hate to see this noble
effort create useless data.

Wayne

> The first test of the Aurigid Laptop Meteor Observation Project,
> using the Perseids, was successful and we now have everything in
> place. All we need now is a group of willing observers. I'm sure that
> everybody here who'll be in the western USA on September 1 will be
> observing the Aurigids. I urgently request every one of those people
> to participate in the Aurigid Laptop Meteor Observation Project, if
> you're not going to be occupied with other activities. It's
> ridiculously simple: download the software, run it on your laptop,
> click the mouse when you see an Aurigid, and email me the data file
> the next morning. I'll use these data files to assemble a 3D image of
> the Aurigid meteor stream as it hit the western USA -- something
> that's never been done before.
>
> I have started a publicity campaign to recruit lots of 'civilians' in
> this effort. It really is possible that we can get the density of
> observers we need to pull this off. You can help.
>
> If you're interested, start with this webpage:
>
> http://www.erasmatazz.com/Aurigid/Aurigid.html
>
> It provides all the information you need.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris Crawford
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