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Re: (meteorobs) Leonid counting
George Zay wrote:
>If rates get that high, I think you will get all balled up real quick.
>Because momentarily you probably will stall when a 0 magnitude meteor shows
>up while your mind is trying to determine whether it's a 0 or a -1? If it
>gets that heavy, you might want to concentrate more on operating a camera?
>In this case, make your exposures 2 or 5 minutes long. Record accurate
>start/stop times to the second. Have a tape recorder available. Unless you
>are near the Longitude of China, I don't think you are gonna get
>overwhelmed though?
By experimenting with the meteor simulation, I noticed that for rates up
to 400 per hour, I can still record most meteor data. For rates
approaching
900 per hour, I will start calling only the magnitudes. I wont bother
calling "Leo" every time. I'll just say "non" for meteors that are not
associated. For rates between 900-2000, I'll call only meteors brighter
than magnitude 0. I find this is already plenty enough, without losing
quality of accuracy. For anything higher than about 2000 per hour,
I stop the visual recording, and proceed to the photographic program only.
That is what I would do in case of storm level activity. Once you get the
camera(s) to do the work, at least you can sit back and enjoy the show in
between exposures. I would still make note of time and magnitude into the
tape of any exceptional fireballs during the storm. Finally, as activity
wanes, I would just do everything in reverse until normal activity.
Pierre