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Re: Fun Limiting Magnitude musings]
At 02:54 AM 5/23/96 -0400, Wayne asked:
>I was just pondering (Pinky, are you pondering what I am?) the reduced
>visibiliy of meteors when they are in front of the MW. Certainly, there is
a >hmmmmm background magnitude, which would be qualitativly different from
the >normal limiting magnitude of illuminated aerosols and crud which is in
between >us and the meteor. Anyone ever given any thought to this?
I have never seen anything along this mentioned in the literature, so my
first reaction would be to advise you to disregard it. When making LM
estimates what you are after is the average LM of the sky. In addition to
the Milky Way, a neighbor might be burning trash which may cause some
reduction of LM in that area of the sky. That is why it is best to make
frequent LM estimates and not use only one area of the sky for the star
counts. Personally, I ignore the Milky Way in determining my LM, I use 2 or
more star count areas for all estimates (depending on what areas are
available), make the estimates frequently, and average them. I feel this
results in a reliable estimate of the overall sky conditions.
mark