(meteorobs) Origin of ZHR: Getting closer?

[Gregory Lobdell]

Richard,

You've done some amazing detective work.  Congratulations.

Is this the publication you're referencing in item 2:

Veröffentlichungen
by Astronomische Institute Bonn.;  Universitäts-Sternwarte zu Bonn.
Language: German  Type:  Serial Publication : Periodical
Publisher: Bonn : Ferd. Dümmlers Verlag,
OCLC: 2584174 

For more information see: http://uwashington.worldcat.org/oclc/2584174

It's not clear if my local university, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, has volume 2 of this 
publication, but they may, or they may be able to help locate it.   Once we get a copy, then it can be 
sent to the appropriate German reader.

Gregg

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:37:17 -0400, Richard Taibi wrote
> I want to acknowledge everyone's contributions to this topic.  They 
> have been helpful!
> 
> In particular, I received suggestions from Ed Cannon and Alastair 
> McBeath, VP of the IMO, that seem to point to the possibility that 
> 1951 or 1952 was when "zhr" was conceived and employed in 
> publications reducing visual meteor rates.  I was referred to two 
> astronomers who, if they themselves did not originate the concept, 
> they must surely have been in association with other astronomers who 
> developed it.
> 
> 1) Zdenek Ceplecha published "Statistical Observations of Meteors 
> 1951," in 1952.  In this article, he improved on an hourly rate 
> computation used by Vladimir Guth (1905-1980), in 1941, by adding 
> another term for "transferring the (meteor) frequencies to the 
> position of the radiant in zenith."
> 
> 2) Eva Ahnert-Rohlfs (born Rohlfs, 1912-1954), an associate of Cuno 
> Hoffmeister, published a study in 1952 too.  Ed Cannon cited a 
> secondary source that reported Dr. Ahnert-Rohlfs published a study 
> about the Perseids in which "hourly rates were corrected to a 
> zenithal value..."  I do not have access to the original article in 
> Veroffentlichungen der Sternwarte in Sonnenberg, Akademie Verlag 
> Berlin, volume 2, part 2, pp. 5-38.  Another source gives 1956 as 
> the publication date of this article.  I must confess that even if 
> the article were available to me, I do not read German.  Perhaps one 
> of our colleagues who does read German could help us out?
> 
> In any case the term "zhr" became more widely used in 1954 articles, 
> and as we have seen, in Sidgwick's 1955 tome.
> 
> So, this interim report points to 1951 as the latest date when the 
> concept of zenithal hourly rate was developed.  Note that Ceplecha's 
> 1952 article was submitted for publication in 1951.  It also seems 
> that the concept was in the meteoric "zeitgeist" in Germany and 
> Czechoslovakia at that time.
> 
> Does anyone have information about earlier uses of the concept?  
> Perhaps some German-reading meteor student could pursue the Ahnert-
> Rohlfs article and determine who she references, if anyone.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Richard Taibi
> Maryland, USA
> 
> ---
> Mailing list meteorobs: meteorobs at meteorobs.org
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, email: owner-meteorobs at meteorobs.org
> http://lists.meteorobs.org/mailman/listinfo/meteorobs