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(meteorobs) The AMS (long)
Goals and History of the American Meteor Society
The golden era of the American Meteor Society (AMS) occured during
the 1950's. Dr. C.P. Olivier had spent decades building a
worldwide network of visual meteor observers of all ages and
abilities, and the fruit of this labor had paid off. Dr. Olivier
was recognized as an icon in the field of Meteor Science, and his
work with the AMS in the service of professional science was
praised worldwide. His Kansas Meteor Group had also done
pioneering experimental work in the forward-scatter radio detection
of meteors, earning them an article in a 1954, issue of Scientific
American. But even during this heyday, a change was in the air
which would alter the course of the AMS.
During the late 1950's and 1960's new photographic and radio
technology combined with the "space race" to generate a burst of
activity in the area of meteor Science. Radar facilities such as
that at Jordrell Banks, England, and the Harvard Camera project in
the United States quickly outstripped the work of Dr. Olivier and
his visual observers. Just as photography had overtaken visual
observations in the professional observatory, visual meteor
observations were rapidly replaced by the new techniques. His
amateur observers remained committed, but by the mid-1960's Dr.
Olivier could no longer depend on professional support for his
visual meteor work. In short, he had been passed over. Worldwide,
the only professional astronomers able to continue visual meteor
work were those in eastern Europe, who could not afford radars or
camera networks behind the "iron curtain" and in the shadow of WW
II. Dr. Olivier retired from professional astronomy and began to
look for a new field of participation for his observers.
The space race of the 1960's, while thwarting the main scientific
value of AMS visual work, provided the opportunity to concentrate
more heavily on its educational aspects. Over the decades of the
AMS's existence, Dr. Olivier had heard from dozens of professional
scientists who claimed to have gotten their start observing for the
AMS. While teenagers or even younger, they had begun by making
hourly counts of meteors seen, had progressed to collecting data on
each individual meteor, and a few had progressed to the more
difficult task of plotting. All of them praised Dr. Olivier for
his support of the young, the novice, and the casual observer. All
had been welcomed to participate, and a fair number had gone to
professional careers in science due to the AMS's modest support of
their interest. During the years of the space race, interest of the
general public in space and astronomy reach new heights, especially
among the younger generations. Dr. Olivier saw the AMS as a way to
engage the young amateur astronomer in the activity of gathering
scientific data while continuing to support his older, loyal
observers. To a degree, this educational goal worked too well. The
space age impetus caused the notion of novice participation to be
oversold. Literally thousands of letters were received each year
asking for free materials to participate. Dr. Olivier, not one to
turn down a request from school children, was literally run ragged
by these requests. Another problem was that there came about a
cadre of amateur observers who, while initially enlisted for
satellite observing, now wanted to do MORE science and less hobby.
Since that time there has existed a demand from this group that the
AMS become more "professional" and serve them rather than the
novice.
When Dr. Olivier passed executive control of the AMS over to Dr.
David Meisel in the 1970's, he made Dr. Meisel promise him two
things: First, membership cost in the AMS was to be kept as low as
possible to allow the greatest number of people to participate,
and, second, that all participants would be welcome and encouraged,
no matter what their age or skill level. Dr. Olivier and Dr.
Meisel both still maintained an interest in using observers'
material, particularly in the statistical study of sporadic
meteors, and continued to collect data and groom good observers for
work in that area. The policy of the AMS has always been to
welcome all observers to submit data, no matter how unskilled, and
to encourage, within its fiscal ability, the development of better
skills over time. In this way, the AMS continues to put a lot of
its administrative effort toward those who have no formal training
or desire to become "professional" amateurs. The AMS has never
claimed that it is an elite corps of semi-professional observers,
nor does it have any intentions of supporting such a goal.
During the late 1970's, another shift began to occur in the Meteor
Science community. With the wane of the space program, the great
photographic networks and back-scatter radars began to shut down.
Those professional astronomers still interested in meteor science
had to look for less expensive ways of performing their research.
In Europe and Canada, the utilization of visual observers once
again arose as a possibility. In the United States, funding and
support for visual meteor research was (and is still) impossible to
find. Dr. Meisel had to make his living in other areas, while
still maintaining the AMS and his promises to Dr. Olivier. The
educational aspects of the society were paramount in securing a new
academic home for the society (the University of New York at
Geneseo), since if it had been professional, external grant support
would have been required to keep it going. This professional
support proved impossible to obtain.
In continental Europe, however, visual meteor work had
continued to be encouraged and expanded, and from this work was
spawned the International Meteor Organization (IMO). The observing
philosophy of the eastern Europeans and this new organization was
significantly different from that of the AMS. Where the AMS had
welcomed all observers, the IMO concentrated on grooming small
groups of expert observers. The data reduction and statistical
techniques used were those developed by the eastern European
astronomers, and the papers describing the elegance of those
techniques were not readily available to amateurs and indeed to
many professionals in the United States. But even if they had been
available, this would not have changed the USA professional
planetary scientists attitude toward visual work. Those active in
the field today in the USA, unlike their European counterparts, had
no apprenticeship in the visual observer ranks. Today, the only
professional in the USA for whom visual observations are really
important is Peter Jenniskins at NASA Ames, and he was not trained
in the USA. Unfortunately, the complaints of amateur observers
about this lack of support from USA professionals is not going to
change funding agency minds.
During the mid-1980's, a perceived conflict between the AMS and the
IMO came during the formation of the International Halley Watch
(IHW). The committee decided to adopt the observing forms and
techniques of the AMS while those in Europe favored the more
"professional" methods advocated by the Czechslovak professional
groups. The one-sided grudge has been long and bitter, and some
members of the IMO have been criticizing the AMS every since that
time. In a subsequent year, an abrasive, written demand for
"surrender" was received by the AMS from an IMO officer which the
AMS, as did the BAA, simply declined. That person, although still
involved with the IMO, is no longer their chief officer. Since the
IAU Smolenece conference in 1993 where AMS and IMO leaders met for
the first time, discussions leading to mutual understanding of
position were fruitful. At that time, arrangements were made for
the transfer of a large amount of previously unpublished AMS data
to the IMO FIDAC (Fireball Database).
In addition to the problem of observing methodology, the IMO
presents another structural impediment to the AMS official
affiliation with it. By closely linking IMO membership with WGN
subscription, the IMO forces those who wish to join the IMO to
subscribe to their journal. Also, those persons, such as
professional astronomers, who might be interested in the contents
of the journal are also forced to become IMO members. The IMO also
refuses to participate in journal exchange programs with other
related organizations, a common practice in the professional
astronomy community. In keeping with Dr. Olivier's wishes, Dr.
Meisel wanted subscription to the WGN to be optional because the
cost of subscription would more than triple the amount of AMS
dues, cutting out some young and low-budget AMS members. Also, Dr.
Meisel wished to make adoption of IMO data collection and reduction
techniques ( or indeed those of any other group like the BAA)
optional to those AMS members who were capable of effectively
utilizing such methods, while continuing to allow the submission of
novice and casual observations using the older AMS techniques.
Consistent with its agenda of allowing participation by even casual
observers and non-members, the AMS actively supports the
publication of Meteor News, not as a scientific journal, but as a
way for its members and others to keep up an interest at an amateur
level. Meteor News subscriptions can always be obtained separately
from AMS affiliation.
In 1993, the AMS received a small endowment from the estate
of Clinton B. Ford. The income from this is being used to modestly
supplement the regular meager income of the society while
attempting to keep the endowment virtually intact for future
activities. Mr. Ford had been one of those young participants in
the AMS when he was a boy, and it was this encouragement of the
beginning amateur that Mr. Ford explicitly wished to continue. The
board of directors of the AMS also decided that a small amount of
funds could now also be available for supporting other meritorious
amateur projects whether done by its members or others. It was up
to the board of directors to determine which projects offered the
best scientific returns for the small investments made. While the
radiometeor project was initially selected for funding, other
projects have been considered and may eventually receive support.
With the limited resources of the AMS, choices about which programs
are to be kept going and which are to be dropped must always be
made. Our present priorities are:
1)The AMS is still keeping its monitoring of the sporadic
flux with an interest in showers fairly much limited to being able
to remove shower contamination from the sporadic flux. Since
Olivier's sporadic rate catalog is based on some 100 years (2
million events), AMS collection over the last 15 years (10,000
events) has a way to go before professional examination is warranted. As
with using any such database for professional work, data selected for use
will be weighted according to the reliability and skill of the observer.
2) The AMS still collects plotted visual meteor data for
the determination of radiants, but lacking velocities, these cannot
be turned into orbits. The main purpose of this is to monitor for
the possibility of sudden outbursts where plotting is a clue to
identification.
3) The AMS effort at monitoring the sporadic background has
been extended to the radio-scatter domain.
The radiometeor effort in the AMS has a very long history, dating
back to initial professional efforts, but because of its greater
technical requirements compared with visual observing, it is not
easily done by a large number of amateur observers. Over the last
15 years, the AMS has continued to encourage experiments by
amateurs (whether members or not) in meteor detection via
forward-scatter radio techniques. But in general, amateur
radiometeor activities are not scientifically well understood and
we are still exploring ways to extract good scientific information
from them. The rules of visual observation data reduction and
procedure just does not work for the radio domain and the two are
not yet comparable.
To review these efforts, etection successes were had in the early
1980's by Meteor Group Hawaii using the shortwave WWV time
broadcasts, and by Kenneth Pilon, a Canadian amateur who was able
to utilize a TRS-80 computer connected to a receiver to detect
meteor events in the FM commercial band. In the mid-1980's Meteor
Group Hawaii also began having success with back- scatter
experiments utilizing 75 MHz airport ILS beacons. An automated
system for collecting empirical data from radiometeors using a
personal computer was developed from 1990 to 1993. But detection is
a long way from science. Radiometeor data analysis is impossible
without computer techniques and sophisticated signal processing and
these are difficult even for the professional. However, we are
making some progress along these lines and hope to be able to
publicly report on them in the near future.
In conclusion, it is unfortunate that there are amateurs and observers who feel
that the AMS is an impediment to their activities. The AMS has
never criticized the work of the IMO. We have never told people
that they would be cutoff from the AMS if they worked with the IMO.
Our members are free to join the IMO or the ALPO if they wish, and
many of our members do. We have never refused to work with data
written on IMO forms. All we want to know is where else the data
is being used, to prevent duplicate analysis of the same data. The
AMS is still functioning under the vision of Dr. Olivier, a vision
extended by the AMS's present charter and our C.B. Ford endowment.
Those who claim the AMS to be "dead" or stagnant" do not understand
our organization's real goals. The AMS does not have a "mission"
and we cannot save meteor science in the USA from itself AND
PROFESSIONAL NEGLECT. We do, however, believe that we have a
public and membership that can be best served by a basically
non-technical, low-cost approach and we will not allow over-scientification
of our procedures and methods to eliminate the
participation by the silent majority of our long-time supporters. Yes, the
American meteor Society is in existence to do Meteor Science work, but our
membership is more
important than any research, not the other way around.
Jim Richardson
Graceville, FL
Richardson@DigitalExpdot com
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