(meteorobs) Why don't more amateurs get it? (Meteors, that is.)

[Tony Flanders]

A few more things to add.

First, just to stress the distinction that many people have drawn:

Lew asked why our fellow amateurs aren't out there viewing meteors even before they pick up their first pair of binoculars. The answer to that question is that they are indeed out there viewing meteors. Every time I go out to my local city park during a meteor shower, there are plenty of other people there -- most of whom have never looked through a telescope. The only astronomical events that excite the general public more than meteor showers are eclipses and bright comets.

What Lew really meant, of course, is why aren't people making scientifically useful observations? Well, I can speak best for myself. I certainly enjoy meteor showers, and I'm constitutionally inclined to observe things systematically and in detail. But I've never submitted a meteor observation to the IMO, and quite likely never will.

Why? Because meteors haven't really grabbed me to the point that I'm willing to develop the skills necessary to make observations that would meet my own quality standards. There aren't that many rich meteor showers per year, and most of them are clouded out. And frankly, time under a clear, dark, moonless sky is too rare and precious for me to spend on minor meteor showers -- let alone sporadics between showers.

What's intriguing about this is that as far as I can think, meteors are the *only* aspect of astronomy where visual observing by amateurs is genuinely central to the science. Yes, there's still a strong contigent of visual variable-star observers. But in the age of mechanized professional sky surveys and amateurs who do millimagnitude photometry with CCDs, visual variable-star observers are increasingly marginalized.

And yes, amazingly enough, a fair number of comets continue to be discovered visually. But how important are those? Most are scientifically not very interesting, and the ones that are important would have been picked up soon enough by the sky surveys. Visual comet discovery is all a game these days -- second-guess the sky surveys and look where they aren't.

But comet hunting continues to capture the public imagination in a way that meteor observing doesn't. Why? Because of the glory. Our society places an inordinate emphasis on individual success -- getting your very own comet named after you. But meteor observing is just the opposite. It emphasizes redundancy. Your observations are valuable precisely because they're part of a coordinated effort. Cogs in a wheel -- not very glorious.

    - Tony Flanders