(meteorobs) IMO fireball report form goes live

Tony Markham tonymarkham832 at gmail.com
Fri Feb 27 01:56:03 EST 2015


I think that most observers would find the reporting system helpful.

My only concern would be with the screen for reporting the brightness of
the fireball. This runs from "as bright as Venus" (mag -4) to "as bright as
the Sun" (mag -28). This could give the impression that the "average"
(middle of the range) fireball will be mag -16. Consequently, observers may
be influenced to report too bright a magnitude. The actual magnitudes of
most fireballs are squashed up towards the left end of the offered range.

This issue is seen in the reports sent to the AMS which uses a similar
reporting system. Looking at their recent fireball reports, around a
quarter were reported to be mag -20 or brighter and around half were
reported to be brighter than the Full Moon. This is clearly unrealistic.

If, however, the offered range ran from "as bright as Venus"  to "brighter
than the Full Moon"  (i.e. around mag -4 to mag -14), this would hopefully
encourage observers to report more realistic magnitudes.

Best Wishes,
Tony

On 26 February 2015 at 15:11, Megan Argo <megan.argo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> After huge efforts on the part of Mike Hankey and Vincent Perlerin, the
> IMO website now hosts a multi-lingual fireball report form at
> http://fireballs.imo.net/   Assuming no specialist astronomical knowledge
> or observing experience, this form easily guides the user through the
> process of reporting a fireball sighting in detail.  The information
> gathered from the submitted reports is collected into a public database
> which can be searched for particular events:
> http://fireballs.imo.net/members/imo_view/browse_events
>
> A team of volunteers has been hard at work translating the fireball form
> into more than 25 languages, and the IMO now requests your help in
> publicising it to local astronomical societies and groups in your region.
> We all know that large fireball events often excite local media.  If such
> an event happens in your region, you can help by publicising the form
> widely to ensure reports are collected from as many eye-witnesses as
> possible.
>
> If you would like to contribute a new translation in a language not
> already covered, or spot a mistake in the text of the form in your native
> language, please follow the instructions to translators at
> http://fireballs.imo.net/members/imo/translators
>
> The IMO fireball report can be customized and branded for amateur
> societies, observatories, institutions or other astronomy organizations who
> receive fireball reports and enquiries from the public (see the Turkish
> Uzaybimer version at http://fireballs.imo.net/?org=uzaybimer for
> example).  For more details, and to set up an account for your
> organization, please contact vperlerin at gmail.com
>
> If you would like to test the form without submitting a false event to the
> database, please use the test version: http://dev.imo.amsmeteors.org/
>
> Clear skies,
> Megan Argo
> IMO Press Officer
>
> _______________________________________________
> meteorobs mailing list
> meteorobs at meteorobs.org
> http://lists.meteorobs.org/mailman/listinfo/meteorobs
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.meteorobs.org/pipermail/meteorobs/attachments/20150227/c94f2b17/attachment.html 


More information about the meteorobs mailing list