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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Visual magnitude



Lew wrote:

> In other words, wouldn't an independent measure of
> sky transparency have to be taken into account in
> "optimal detection magnification" algorithms and similar
> calculations? If not, why not?

I am not quite sure what the phrase in quotation marks means. Do you mean we
should correct for transparency AND background?

It has been found that the lm is only a valid measure for a certain range of
let's call it pretty dark skies. As soon as the sky is lit up the lm for stars
and meteors may separate significantly. This makes the analysis of full-moon
shower maxima most difficult and uncertain.

Although we could invest efforts in finding a thorough correction method for
illuminated skies or other unusual conditions, this doesn't help a lot---it
would lead to sophisticated methods I guess which cannot be followed by the
observer. Correction factors are always based on the assumption that the
correction keeps reasonable. So the answer is yes, both conditions should be
considered theoretically, but we try to stick to conditions where the effects
mentioned are small.

I do not know about the definition of the contrast in deep-sky observing. Do you
know what it means?

Rainer


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