(meteorobs) (meteors) Origin of ZHR?

[Dave Hostetter]

First, sorry for the gibberish that came through previously from me about
this.  Those were supposed to go elsewhere to remind me to do the research!

The planetarium I run has copies of "Astronomical Calendar," by Guy
Ottewell, going back to 1979, and the earliest one references the ZHR and
specifically refers to it as a Zenithal hourly Rate rather than a Zenithal
Horary Rate.  The same is true of my dilapitated 1973 edition of "Norton's
Star Atlas."  For what it's worth, I have a few older popular astronomy
books from 1848 - 1927, and they don't mention ZHRs despite decent coverage
of meteors.

Dave Hostetter

> Daniel - Last year, George Drobnock pointed me to the "Memoirs of the
British
> Astronomical Association vol I (1891)" in which he states that the term
ZHR is discussed. I
> am not privy to that volume, but have found in later volumes that the term
"zenithal horary
> number" is used, and I believe it is the same as ZHR. If you Google
"zenithal horary
> number" you will find many documents, and I believe that the one that I
found by
> Blackhouse (1883)discribes the zenithal horary number and its algorithm.
While the data in
> the table is for the years 1883-4, he suggests that he had made
observations back in 1859
> using this algorithm.