(meteorobs) re: Origin of ZHR?

Ed Cannon ecannon at mail.utexas.edu
Mon May 28 03:22:12 EDT 2007


A 1952 article that is said to say "hourly rates were
corrected to a zenithal value" is cited in the following:

B. A. Lindblad. A long-term high-resolution study of the
visual activity curve of the Perseid meteor stream 1953–1983.
Planetary and Space Science, Volume 48, Issue 10, August 2000,
Pages 905-909.

Under the heading "1.1. Single-station data" is the following:

"During the 20th century detailed visual and photographic
studies of the structure and activity of the Perseid stream
have been made by Guigay (1947/1948), Ahnert-Rohlfs (1952),
Wright and Whipple (1953), Lindblad (1986) and others.
Ahnert-Rohlfs analysed 853 Perseid meteors observed in
Sonneberg in 1931–1936. Hourly rates were corrected to a
zenithal value and the rates were presented as a function of
solar longitude (equinox 1925)."

Here's that Ahnert-Rohlfs reference:

Ahnert-Rohlfs, E., 1952. Veröffentl. der Sternwarte in
Sonnenberg. Akad. Verlag Berlin 2 2, pp. 5–38.

Later in the article is this bit of history:

"In 1944–1953 a team of experienced meteor observers at the
Skalnate Pleso observatory recorded more than 17,000 Perseids.
Zenithal corrected Perseid rates per one observer were later
computed, taking into consideration corrections for cloudiness,
lunation effects and personal coefficients of the observers
(Zvolankova, 1984)."

Here's the Zvolankov reference (mentioned already in another
message):

Zvolankova, J., 1984. Contr. Astron. Obs. Skalnate Pleso 12,
pp. 45–63.

BTW, I saw a typo in the online version of the Lindblad
article:  "Denning analysed 2409 Perseids observed between
the dates July 11 and August 19, 1869–1998 [sic]."  That last
year should be 1898, of course.

Ed Cannon - Austin, Texas, USA



More information about the Meteorobs mailing list