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Re: (meteorobs) A blank meteor reporting form
>Mark,
>Your form looks adequate for the most part, but you might want to
>consider removing the entry for "radiant diameter". It essentially
>has no meaning for a visual observer and may cause confusion as to
>where one can find this information?
I'd have to disagree with George on this one, y'all: knowing what
criteria the observer is using for their shower determination is
very valuable, I imagine! As has been mentioned on here a while ago,
there are a variety of radiant diameters assumed by different exper-
ienced (and not so experienced) observers for each meteor shower.
The IMO literature (some of it) lists "radiant sizes" (i.e., areas
of the sky which observers should match path orientations against)
as large as 15 degrees for some "loose" or poorly observed showers!
Knowing which criteria an observer chose to use that night might be
very important in calibrating their result later. Or am I off here?
Clear skies!
Lew
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