(meteorobs) Origin of ZHR: Getting closer?

bob71741 bob71741 at yahoo.com
Tue Mar 17 19:52:29 EDT 2009


George - Very interesting. I found Vol V (1895) as a Google book and found it strange that ZHR was not used 4 years later.

The terminology has changed somewhat; streak instead of trail; cloud of sparks for the terminal fireball; slow,slowish,quick, swift to describe the speed, or class as they called it. They also delineated magnitude down to 1/4; e.g 6 1/2-6 3/4.

One individual did some fudging of the hourly numbers as he mentioned seeing 20 meteors in 40 minutes, which he considered an hourly rate of 25.

The tabular data was quite interesting since they was not a legend to go with it, so some of the headings were meaningless to me.

I've downloaded the book in PDF format, but would not consider adding to the archive because it is almost 14 MB.

Bob


--- In meteorobs at yahoogroups.com, drobnock <drobnock at ...> wrote:
>
> Some time back a question was asked about the origin of the term ZhR or
> zenithal hourly rate.
> 
> During the discussion it was thought that the term was originated by
> Sidgwick or Kresák circa 1951/1953. I came across the following use of
> the term ZHR  in "Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association,"  By
> E E Markwick, British Astronomical Association reports of observational
> sections,  Volume I. Year 1891. Published 1893 London.
> 
> On page 21 was a discussion of the Leonids. Observation by a Mr
> Backhouse and the report submitted by Denning. The quote of interest is
> "... zenithal hourly rate of Leonids, ie, corrected for altitude of
> radiant"
> 
> >From this the term is older than 1952.
> 
> George John Drobnock
> 
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