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Re: Velocity estimates
> Do people only report speeds as km/s when plotting, or for
> major-shower counts too?
Reporting speeds as km/s is hardly possible; do you mean degrees/sec? The
reporting of km/s requires the knowledge of the actual radiant of each meteor.
I consider the accuracy of visual speed estimates too low for any other purposes
than shower association. Experienced observers reach accuracies of 3-4 deg/s at
10 deg/s, or 5-6 deg/s at 20 deg/s.
Moreover, I don't think it is more difficult to start with degrees per second as
a beginner. If you start with steps of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 deg/s there is
actually no difference between a speed scale of 0-5. The observer may use
intermediate values whenever he feels capable to do so.
Rainer