[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: (meteorobs) Re: Statistics & Stationary Meteors

Bob,

> My intentions were not toward bragging but rather to supply an

O-: or whatever the smiley is for shock or gobsmacked.  I never
thought you were bragging Bob.  I fully understood at the time and
welcomed the total---to specify a frequency.  Looks like I put some
noses out of joint with that post.  Talk about divided by a common
language.

> If I wanted to be precise I would have stated that I have seen perhaps
> 10 stationary meteors out of 51,284 meteors recorded. I do keep grand

Now that's the kind of thing I mean.  If you are rigorous and only
include observations with specified criteria (say exclude those you
see outside of formal watching or in my case seeing fireballs while
recording some telescopic meteor), never lose any data (e.g. tape
failure, dog eats you notes while asleep), I guess it is possible to
be exact.  Approximating to round figures is perfectly adequate as the
10 has a much bigger uncertainty so the last four digits don't add
anything.  (I know you know this Bob.  My remark is for the benefit of
other readers.)

> totals and also I mention true stationary meteors in my observing
> reports.

I did record apparent or possible stationary meteors.  As I said
I suspect many were not real meteors.

> I do not though keep a grand total for stationary meteors and I
> lack the free time to look through many years of records just to come up
> with an exact figure.

That's a relief!  No doubt some can tell you their counts by day of
the week, observing on grass or astroturf. ((-:

> One stationary meteor in 500 is much more than what I see. As an

The error on that frequency was large.  It could easily be way off.
My first guess was one in 1000.  Last night helped me focus on this,
and while one in 500 sounds about right for my early days, later on
I'd say perhaps one on 2000+.  You tend to think it's higher because
they are more interesting than the run-of-the-mill meteor.  It's
another example of selective memory.  My apparent frequency went down
as I became more experienced, and as the number of flashing satellites
increased (yes increased) because many had shorter flash periods (so
that you could more than one flash per passage) and I was simply more
aware of them.

Like you Bob I don't have time to go through the records.  In the
early days we didn't use summary forms, so it's a lot of reading
(and I'm not bragging (-:).

I think it's an interesting study to do.  If you work out the
probabilities involved from the geometry there indeed should be very
few point meteors.  If the numbers don't tally, what's the explanation?

Malcolm
References: