(meteorobs) Aurigid Laptop Observation Project

[Chris Crawford]

On Aug 23, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Kim Hay wrote:

> I am more concerned on the dark sky adaptation. You go outside, get
> adapted, turn on the computer, and boom- white light.  You may not  
> be able
> to pick up faint meteors.

No, the program takes over the entire screen and turns it black,  
printing its output in white characters. Moreover, I recommend that  
you use an external mouse and drape a towel over your laptop.

>
> Without having downloding the
> program, do you have to keep mouse pointing on one point?

The program will accept data so long as the mouse is inside the  
application's window, and the program sizes the window to consume the  
entire screen; however, it is possible that, if the mouse drifts to  
the top of the screen, mouseclicks will be lost. For this reason, I  
have included sound feedback on each click and auditory warnings to  
the user if the mouse drifts too close to any edge.

> Can this program be used for other showers? Is this idea for the  
> future?

This project is solely for the Aurigids. There are lots of laptop  
programs that allow you to count meteors and even record their  
magnitudes. My program is not as good for these purposes as those  
other programs.

Chris