(meteorobs) 100 impacts on the Moon ... and counting

[Rainer Arlt]

Dear Bruce and all,

Thanks for the post on lunar impacts! I am just back home
from a workshop at NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office to
which I was very kindly invited by Bill Cooke.

Two things should be improved here: First, the full observing
time must be counted against the impact events, thus leading
to a measure for the real 'impact rate'. Given this is al-
ready possible because these recordings are all video-based,
this should not be a problem, but we need th actual numbers.
The impact number just no longer be biased to the favourable
nights.

Second, a full network of observers will be most helpful.
Amateurs interested in video equipment are specially 
addressed to take part. 

There is multiple-station work going on thanks to the efforts
of George Varros in Maryland who observes in parallel with
the Meteoroid Environment Office in Alabama. He documented
a number confirmations on his web page.

I must say when I saw the video clips, it was quite dif-
ficult to see the flash even when the clip had looped 3-4
times. It apears to me like a major difference between
visual spotting and video recording with later inspec-
tion/detection by software. But have never tried myself
though.


Best regards,
Rainer


--
IMO Visual Observations
Rainer Arlt -- www.aip.de/People/rarlt --  +49-331-7499-354 -- fax: -526
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