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Re: Meteor Colors
Presently, I know of no serious statistical use of color estimates for
non-fireballs. Lew asked if there have been any statistical studies on color
perception across observers. I'm sure there has, but the one's I'm familiar
with are those predominantly written by Alastair McBeath(England) in IMO's
WGN journal. You referred to my paper in the Journal. My paper was nothing
more than a response to a previous Alastair paper. Since I had many
observing hours (at the time about 600 hours, now about 1600hrs)to refer to,
I was comparing my colors to that of the group that Alastair based his report
on. Basically what I've concluded since then from personal insight is that
trying to make much out of meteor colors is a wasted effort until there is
some genuine way to make sure everyone is interpreting colors the same way.
I did notice that certain showers have a preference for certain colors or
more of a certain color than will be noticed in other showers. For example,
most of the Lyrids appear brite white to me...no oranges with an occasional
blue. Whereas the Geminids seems to me to have more greens, blues and golden
yellows for my perception than what I'd see compared to the Lyrids. I
personally think the Blues and Greens are atmospheric effects. These colors
could also be the result of fireball contents and velocity that are
indicative of any given shower. The real confusion occurs when one tries to
separate the whites from the Yellows... Very dependent on the individuals
interpretation. True composition study is probably left in the realm of
meteor spectroscopy. But I still record colors because you never know who
will come up with some idea that will make sense. Then the data of the past
may be valuable someday.
George