(meteorobs) 2/14/2011 NYC / Philly Fireball

[GeoZay at aol.com]

Everything Wayne said below...I agree. :O)  Some things I'd  like to 
add...back in the 90's when Bob Lunsford and I observed routinely  together, there 
were three things I could count on...One we seldom ever agree on  color. 
Two I would see about 2/3's of what Bob sees. Three our recorded  magnitudes 
were very close in agreement with what we mutually seen. 
GeoZay
 
 
>>An interesting question, Jim. I would argue that for any single  event, 
that
might be true. For example, I might call a specific meteor +2  mag, while 
Lew
or Kevin might call it +1 or +3. But over the course of an  observing
session, the numbers will come out very close. This has been  confirmed by a
number of multi-person observing sessions I've been involved  in, as well as
those by observers across the world. The parameter where there  is
consistently the least agreement however, is that of color.

That is  only made worse in the case of a fireball. First, it's an 
unexpected
event,  unlike meteors during an observing session. 99% of the witnesses  
(or
99.99999999999999% if you invoke Murphy's Law) are not  experienced
observers. It's very difficult to estimate the magnitude of a  fireball when
there are no comparison objects, other that the memory of a  full moon 
(M-12)
or the sun (M -26). There are no real comparison objects for  color, and
individual perception is highly variable, exacerbated by the short  period 
of
visibility by naïve witnesses.

Looking at this event, 20%  reported green, 20% white, 10% each red and 
gold,
and 40% scattered among the  rest. That's pretty inconsistent.

Wayne deposits his 2  cents...<<