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re: (meteorobs) Average Meteor Magnitude



Joseph Damien Assmus wrote:

>Couldn't simliar
>graphs showing systamatic temporal changes in average magnitude be 
generated?

Without knowledge of the Limiting Magnitude, the average Magnitude of the 
meteors is devoid of meaning. Since someone in NJ, (sigh) has a LM of just 
better than 5, few +5 meteors are seen, wheras someone in INRISC like you, 
with skies better than +6  is much more likely to see some +5's. You can 
see how the different quantity of +5's would skew the average.  This also 
applies to +4's, etc, since it makes sense to me that the probabilty of 
detecting a meteor is related to the magnitude difference between the 
meteor and the background sky. That's one thing that makes detrmination of 
'r' so difficult; it's almost an iterative loop to consider all these 
factors...I think the new (Yellow cover) IMO handbook has an explanation 
that didn't make my brain hurt too much :--)

Wayne


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