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Re: (meteorobs) Abbreviations (LOOONG!)


Hi, Rachel, great question! Frequently, messages posted to the list must be 
hard to decipher for folks new to meteors...

Here's some "meteor specific" abbreviations I've seen in recent posts - you 
should hear from other subscribers with the ones I missed, soon enough! :) Note 
that all the "three letter shower codes" are actually standard IMO codes, 
defined on their handy Web site at:
        http://www.imodot net/calendar/cal98.html

And yes, there will be a quiz on this next week! ;>


Meteor Recording Terms:
LM      Limiting Magnitude - faintest star you are able to see near
        the zenith at any given moment. Usually measured with the IMO
        "Star Count Method" - see IMO's Web site for details. This is
        a very important number to measure when you record meteors!
Teff	Effective observing Time - the digital number of hours during
        which your eyes were actually glued to the night sky - doesn't
        include ANY breaks taken, nor the recording time you had to
        spend on each meteor you saw.
HR      Hourly Rate - how many meteors someone actually saw from
        a certain shower in 1.0 hours of uninterrupted "Teff".
        Also used for "sporadic" (non-shower) meteor rates.
ZHR	Zenithal Hourly Rate - a calculated "standard meteor rate"
        which is more a theoretical number for comparing results,
        than an actual example of what YOU may see from a shower.
CHR     Corrected Hourly Rate (rarely used) - an intermediate step
        between a group of individual HRs and a final calculated ZHR.
CFV     Center of Field of View - what area of sky you were facing.
DCV     Distance from Center of View - how far you had to slew your
        eyes and head around (in degrees) to catch a meteor track.


Showers:
PER     Member of the Perseid meteor shower of July/August.
SDA     Member of the South Delta Aquarids of July/August.
NDA     North Delta Aquarid of July/August.
SIA     South *Iota* Aquarid of July/August.
NIA     North Iota Aquarid of July/August.
AUR     Alpha Aurigids of August/September.
DAU     Delta Aurigids of early September.
GIA     Draconids (aka "Giacobinids") of early October - rare!
ORI     Orionids of late October.
LEO     Leonids of mid-November.
GEM     Geminids of mid-December.
URS     Ursids of late December.
QUA     Quadrantids or "January Bootids" or January 2-4.
LYR     Lyrids of late April.
ETA     Eta Aquarids of April/May.
(and there are many more codes for other "minor showers"!)


And here are the most common Time Zones used on our list...

Time Zone / Difference from Universal or "GMT" Time:
UT      +0    Universal Time - based on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), 5 hrs
              ahead of Eastern Standard, 4 hrs ahead of EDT. This is the
              standard reporting time for most astronomical events, and
              in particular all recorded fireballs or other meteors.

MET/MED +1/0  Middle European Time/Daylight Time (Western Europe)
BST     -1    British Summer Time - similar to Daylight Savings for UK
AST/ADT -4/-3 Atlantic Standard/Daylight Time (Maritime Provinces)
EST/EDT -5/-4 Eastern Standard/Daylight Time (East Coast North America)
CST/CDT -6/-5 Central Standard/Daylight (Midwest US, Central America)
MST/MDT -7/-6 Mountain Standard/Daylight (Rocky Mountain States/Provinces)
PST/PDT -8/-7 Pacific Standard/Daylight (our lucky California Contingent)
NCT     +11   New Caledonia Time! (Our friend Papou in Oceania)
JST     +9    Japanese Standard Time
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