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Re: (meteorobs) Facing the Radiant or Not
At 09:54 AM 8/21/96 -0400, GWG asked:
>
> The question of if you should face the radiant looking for members of a
>meteor shower or not is controversial. I think it depends on the type of
>vision and experiance of the observer. Some excellent observers like George
>Zay will say to face 40 degrees away from the radiant. 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?
Can't really add any hard evidence, but I have often wondered about the same
thing. Through my years of observing, I have observed both ways, and never
have been able to detect much difference. Over about the last year, I have
been recording the distance to each meteor from my center of vision. Haven't
taken a hard look at it, but the best I can remember, the greatest DCV was
around 45 degrees. Therefore, it seems to me if I faced the radiant, I would
still catch some of those long sky-crossers.
Currently, the direction I face is restricted to what is going on, similar
to what Wayne said. On average, I guess I face about 25 to 30 degrees from
the radiant, but sky conditions and active radiants are major factors. One
thing no one has mentioned is facing in a direction such that you line up
the radiants incorrectly. For example, if 0 is your center of view and x are
radiant positions, then the following would cause difficulty in determining
shower assoc. based on path direction:
0 X X
In these cases, I try to face a point that is, in the above diagram, above
or below the line connecting the two radiants. (Not sure if this is related,
just threw it in...)
Like Lew said, this is just my $0.02 worth...
Mark Davis
MeteorObs@charlestondot net