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(meteorobs) LM, eclipse and clouds
Lew, good point about the clouds.This kind of relates to what I said before
about LM being a combination of transparency,and dark sky illumination. I
surmise that as the eclipse progressed, while the transparancy was
relativly unchanged, because those thin clouds were not lit up, the
limiting magnitude improved dramatically. That's why on a truly clear night,
you can do useful observations on the sky side away from the say quarter
moon, but with a thin, almost invisible layer of cirrus (or haze) that
barely affects transparancy, a quarter moon can light up those clouds,
raising the background level and therfore reducing LM.
just mu 3 cents worth,
Wayne, who sees the sky so seldom he has to occupy his mind with exercises
like this.