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Re: (meteorobs) Facing the Radiant or Not
My radiant choices have been 20 to 30 degrees away, with the exact location
determined by light and clouds, and on slow nights ( most nights) chosen to
provide the widest spread for meteors from the active minor radiants. For
example, trying to plot the various aquarid and capricornid radiants in
july, the spot I picked was such that each shower would plot as far away
from the others as possible. Then there was perseid night, sigh, when we
ran around the parking lot looking for the biggest hole in the clouds :-(
Wayne
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Original Text
From Lew Gramer <dedalus@latradedot com>, on 8/21/96 12:39 PM:
To: "Meteor Observing Mailing List" <meteorobs@latradedot com>
George Gliba asks:
>I face directly at the radiant. Now, it may be that because I have wide
field
>vision, this works for me, or maybe it's experiance, I don't know. Any
other
>opinions or thoughts about this out there?
I generally face about 40o away from the "biggest" radiant of the night,
unless
I have to face a certain direction to avoid clouds or light pollution. I
just do
what I'm told... ;>
But in terms of AESTHETICS, facing the radiant seems like a trade-off: more
neat
stationary and semi-stationary meteors; fewer long slow meteors and
"tracers".
This also depends on whether a radiant's in an interesting area of the sky!
Just my $0.02,
Lew