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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Meteor colors
> At a number of large observing parties in the past, I've witnessed
> fireballs with groups of "down to earth" astronomers. Polling them
> consistently about their color perceptions, there are invariably at least
> half as many colors quoted as observers polled... And colors are all over
> the spectrum.
On a cloudy night get some observers together to perform an
experiment. Get dark adapted, then briefly shine a moving compact
bright white light toward the observers. Ask the observers to note
the colour of the light independently. It does need an intense source
to mimic a fireball. My hunch is that you'll get a similar spectrum
of colours reported. The saturation and persistence of vision gives
rise to spots before the observers eyes. The spots act like coloured
filters. Well that's my theory for seeing a claret Geminid fireball.
You could repeat the experiment filtering the source to make it
slightly bluish or reddish, and see if that makes any difference.
There may be differences depending on the intensity and distance from
the COV...
To do it properly you might need a double-blind experiment, so that
the observers don't know what the true colour of the `fireball' is.
It sounds like something for Detlef to perform at the next IMC...
Malcolm
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