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Re: (meteorobs) Question?


When I was young, I had the same problem as Jonathan:  I had to go to bed
at 9pm on most nights.  It was a long time before I even saw the summer
night sky.  Fortunately, although my parents weren't into astronomy they
at least encouraged my interest.  My first astronomical experience was
when I was about 3 and we were out camping.  My dad took me for a walk and
said that maybe we would see a shooting star (we didn't; of course it was
well before midnight ;)).  Five years later, I checked out H.A. Rey's book
from the school library, and haven't stopped since.  I was able to get
permission to stay up and watch a couple of lunar eclipses, and maybe I
saw some before-midnight Perseids during a couple of years.  When I was
12, my dad and I got up at 2 a.m. to watch the 1985 Geminids.  That was
incredible, even though we probably stayed out for a half-hour (magnitude
6.5 skies and 20 degrees F; saw a couple dozen meteors before we froze
out).  That was also the night I started following Comet Halley in the
evening sky.  It wasn't until years later, when I could make the decision
to stay up all night, that I started thinking about taking data during
meteor watches.

So in one sense, Jonathan's got a jump on me:  He's interested at an early
age.  I would advise him not to stress too much about when to observe
meteors, but to realize that data in really poor sky conditions or looking
through a window may not have much "scientific" or "statistical" value. 
The value in these observations is for Jonathan himself to get acquainted
with the sky, get used to determining limiting magnitudes and estimating
the magnitude and speed of meteors, etc.  Some possible goals, rather than
a certain number of hours Teff or a certain number of meteors, might be:

1) Try to get out of the city for a night or two on a New Moon weekend to
somewhere with darker skies (magnitude 6+).  Not only will you see more
meteors, but you'll see a lot of the reasons some of us find skywatching
so enjoyable, such as the Milky Way.  Again, take some time to determine
your limiting magnitude, and see what effect this has on the number of
meteors you see.  You may have a hard time convincing your parents, and it
may not happen immediately, but it will be worth it.

2) Try to convince your parents to let you stay up all night during the
maximum night of a major shower.  The Leonids may work, even though there
is a Full Moon this year.  Next year, there are a lot of showers without
moonlight interference, so between the weather and your parents you may
get a shot at one of those.  Seeing more meteors in an hour than you've
seen in an entire month is an experience not to be missed.  Bonus if you
can combine this with number 1, but don't get upset if you have to wait a
year or more.  I lived in a very small town when I was growing up, and
nobody had heard of the Internet, so it was a lot easier to be patient.
Now it seems we want everything to happen tomorrow.

3)  This is an ambitious project, and you may want help from the meteorobs
crew, but you might start practicing plotting meteors.  I've never gotten
into this, but it seems that most of the finest meteor observers have
become skilled at this method.  Mainly for minor shower work, but it would
also be a handy skill to have when that -10 sporadic fireball shows up
overhead.  Low rates are fine, and since there is a learning curve you can
gradually build up to the required accuracy if you accept that your first
plots may not be that useful as data.  

--
Wes Stone <wstone@lclarkdot edu>  Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR
                 SKYTOUR Amateur Astronomy Hypertext:
          http://www.lclarkdot edu/~wstone/skytour/skytour.html
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