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Re: (meteorobs) Welcome to Sirko and perception coefficient

Hello Mark and Lew,

> Thanks for pointing this out since this is extremely important. From my
> readings in WGN, I have found the concept understandable and see its value,
> but have never actually understood completely how it is derived. Can you
> shed more light on this? Also, you mention "a large enough sample of
> observations...". Is there a minimum amount that is needed to make the
> calculation accurate?

I'm not directly involved in the analysis process of visual meteor 
observations. However, my advantage is to live here in Germany and have 
very close contacts to those who do it ;-), so many of the things are 
often discussed either on AKM meetings or during group observations.

I didn't know about the perception coefficient until a few years ago 
either, and I don't have a good literature references for it. I will ask 
Rainer to maybe write a short comment about this in the questions@answers 
section of WGN and post it to the mailing list as well.

So far as I know, the perception coefficient is not calculated for every 
observer who hands in visual observations. I think here in Germany it was 
only determinded individually for a selected group of observers who took 
part in group observations which lasted at least several days. Also the 
Dutch observers often carry out expeditions and were able to determine their 
cp values. 
The coefficient can only be determined if the real zenith rate at a 
certain time is know. That is never the case, but if you observe 
together with many others, you can take the average of all individual 
ZHR's as a good approximation. Then you can calculate your own cp by 
comparing your ZHR values with the average results.
To be honest, I don't know my perception coefficient since I did not have 
a good set of observations so far. Maybe it can be done from this years 
Perseids which we observed in Ketzuer some 50km west of Berlin.
Sirko

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