(meteorobs) A Visual Observing Question

[Paul Jones]

Hi Paul Z., Paul J. in Florida here.  This is the unfortunate conundrum
that so many meteor folks face these days: having to travel to find skies
dark enough to be optimum for meteor obs vice staying put where they are
and see much less.  While I agree with Shy that there can be instances when
your obs in bright skies are valuable; regular, systematic obs of
especially the minor showers in bright skies would be very difficult to
sustain from an observer alertness standpoint, I would think.
The problem in my experience (as I'm sure you well know) is that fainter
meteors greatly outnumber the bright meteors and your observed rates would
drop significantly under 4.0 - 4.5 LM consistently.  One of the biggest
surprises I've had through all my years of watching is what an amazing
difference even just a .5 mag drop in LM can make to the number of meteors
I can see.  Just the difference in 6.5 compared to 6.0 for example, often
almost doubles my observed rate, especially for the fainter major showers
such as the Orionids and Lyrids and also for sporadic rates particularly.
For showers like the Perseids, Leonids  and Geminids, you would of course
see more in bright skies (assuming also you are out at the best times)
because they tend to produce more brighter meteors among the increased
rates.   The mathematical gurus can also make corrections to your bright
sky data, but the concern is more for sustained observer alertness and
focus with long lulls in activity.
Perhaps you can evolve to a system similar to what so many other meteorobs
folks have had to do: find a safe, darker sky spot to go to when the major
showers (or even promising minor showers) are favorable around the moon and
the local skies are clear.
Another important point to keep in mind: ALWAYS keep close attention to Bob
Lunsford's excellent weekly meteorobs reports (especially for times of the
night and/or early morning for optimum viewing of a particular radiant) and
follow his advice and suggestions to the letter.  He is always spot on in
informing us all what will happen and when, so you can take his advice and
devise your plan of attack accordingly geared to your local weather
conditions at the time.
Lots to consider and weigh out, I know.  If it were easy, just anyone
could/would do it, right?  No, it's only those special, diehard, resilient,
persistent and maybe even somewhat stubborn folks like us who tackle it!
The list is always here to help you and answer questions, too!

Good luck, Paul in FL


On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 10:55 PM, Shy Halatzi <shyhalatzi at gmail.com> wrote:

> Of course. If there is a shower and not many people are observing it, your
> observation records might be precious, regardless of the lm. We had
> instances in which our meteor group was more or less the only one in the
> world making observations.
> Naturally, an observation with a better lm will be more useful since it
> has more meteors. But it doesn't mean that low lm observations are
> meaningless.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 28 בדצמ 2013, at 02:02, pzeller1966 <pzeller1966 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>   I have a question that I've been meaning to throw out to members of this
> mailing list. First, to give a little background, I've gotten more and more
> interested lately in making scientifically valuable visual observations of
> meteor showers; both major and minor showers. I've been reading about the
> methods used by the IMO for meteor counts and plotting. However, while
> reading through the material available online, I was a little disappointed
> to find out that visual observing is discouraged if the limiting magnitude
> of the sky is 5.0 or less. Years of amateur astronomy have taught me that
> my most transparent skies from my back yard let me see stars as low as 4.5
> - 4.8 magnitude with the naked eye. I can very rarely see stars to 5.0 and
> my very best, darkest nights have let me see stars to 5.2 magnitude.
> However, nights like this are very rare! I've thought about trying to find
> a better observing site further from the city lights, but this doesn't help
> if the night has moonlight. I guess my question is this ... Can any useful
> visual observing be done on nights when the limiting visual magnitude is
> 4.0 - 4.5 or so? Useful enough to report to the IMO or other groups like
> NAMN? All replies are welcome.
>
>   Thanks and good observing to all of you.
>
>   Paul Z.
>   Indianapolis IN USA
>
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