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Re: Magnitude Estimates
Hmmm, OK I'll try degrees per second, maybe next year. What with limiting
magnitude boxes, Magnitudes and a rough guess on speeds my brain is about
to explode.
Seriously, it sounds like a good skill. Perhaps on a slow night, I'll try
to lay out a 5 degree radius once I find some stars appropratly separated.
Oh, well more challenges for the future!
Wayne
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Original Text
>From Rainer Arlt <100114.1361@CompuServedot com>, on 5/20/96 5:31 PM:
To: "Meteor Observers List" <MeteorObs@latradedot com>
> I know this may be a controversial view to some
> people, so should we open a further discussion on it?
A visual observer can estimate magnitudes with an accuracy of 1 mag, except
for
some particularly slow and long meteors. Yet it is wise to use a finer
scale to
note the magnitudes. Noting a +3.5-mag meteor and putting it half into +3
and
half into +4 yields a smoother magnitude
distribution leading to more reliable population indices.
If too few classes (here: magnitudes) are available to the estimator he may
tend
to distort the distribution, e.g. by preferring a certain class, say +2
meteors.
When he has the freedom to note
+1.5 and +2.5 meteors the magnitude distribution will rather look like a
continuous function.
The same problem occurs with speed estimates where degrees per second
should be
preferred although nobody is able to estimate them with 1 deg/s accuracy.
The
speed estimate in degrees per second is also superior for arbitrary scales
for
other reasons.
Rainer