(meteorobs) (meteors) Origin of ZHR?

[dfischer at astro.uni-bonn.de]

> In 2007 there was a discussion about the year first used used or origin
> of the term Zenith Hourly Rate ZHR.

At the International Meteor Conference in 2003 Paul Roggemans from Belgium
gave a remarkable review paper on the history of systematic meteor
observation in Europe - according to my contemporary report on his talk at
http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/news/750.html#744 the ZHR and other
standards of visual counting only emerged in the early to mid-1980s after
heated discussions taking place mostly in Eastern Europe. (According to
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004JIMO...32....2T the paper is also in
the Proceedings.) My first 'encounter' with the ZHR formula was in the
East German journal Die Sterne around 1985 which would fit Roggemans'
narrative. Since all this ain't ancient history, enough eyewitnesses of
the early days of the ZHR should still be around.

Daniel