(meteorobs) The value of visual meteor observations

Chris Crawford chrisc at storytron.com
Fri Jul 27 15:46:31 EDT 2007


This can be a controversial subject. Visual observations were at one  
time not long ago the core of meteor astronomy. However, the advent  
of video meteor observations has created a challenge to the primacy  
of visual observations. Video observations are more reliable and more  
consistent than human observations; however, they are still rare and  
in many cases are not as sensitive as human observers. There is no  
doubt that human observations still retain value. There is lots of  
room for furious argument about how quickly video observations will  
render human observations useless.

I believe that the usefulness of human observations can be extended  
by greater coordination of these observations. Please see my project  
plan at http://www.erasmatazz.com/Aurigid/Aurigid.html to see the  
kind of thing we can do that still has plenty of utility.

So how are these observations used? Basically, we use meteor  
observations to identify meteor streams, measure their strength,  
determine their orbits, and associate them with comets. It's the  
association with comets that is most useful. The meteor stream is the  
debris of the comet's losses due to its exposure to hot sunlight. The  
properties of the meteor stream tell us something about the structure  
of comets.

There are several other scientific applications of meteors. Multiple  
observations of extremely large meteors can help locate any  
meteorites that reached the ground. The meteors can also be treated  
as probes of the upper atmosphere, although visual observations play  
no direct role in this research.

Chris


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