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(meteorobs) AMS Archives

I thought it might be interesting for you all to have an indication of what
was in the AMS archives.  Below is Dr. Olivier's summary of meteors reported
to AMS from 1898-1972.  In his own words, these reports include:

"...everything reported from meteors plotted and fully described;
scientifically made hourly counts; group estimates of little statistical
value; also a few odds and ends of practically no use."

The archive lies fallow due to the fact that we AMS folks are scattered
widely across the country; I'm sure if Jim Richardson and a few of the rest
of us lived in sunny Geneseo, we'd be mining the mass of data as best we
could.  Unfortunately we are quite literally scattered to the four winds, as
far in the corners of the country as we can get: Florida, Southern
California, Hawaii!  We've had some inconclusive discussions on what to do
with the archives as far as making data accessible, all of which begin with
shipping boxes of material across the country.  This is a fairly risky
proposition, from many standpoints, and since we haven't even decided what a
volunteer would actually DO with the material once it was in his/her hands,
we obviously haven't proceeded.  Should we scan it with an eye to making
images available, input observing records to some program for analysis,
digitize raw data so it's available for different methods of analysis to
those that follow?  Jim Richardson favors the last option, rightly so, but
it's a monumental data entry task.  It's not an insurmountable task, though,
as demonstrated by the AAVSO's computerization of several million variable
star observations dating back to the turn of the century.  Hopefully we'll
make some headway soon.  The table:

                      TABLE I

Summary of Cumulative Totals of Meteors Reported to the A.M.S.

                            Number of
   Publication Years        Meteors Reported

Ml           1898-1911          6114
M2           1911-1914          2837
M3           1914-1918         24560
M4           1919-1925          8045
             1927               3143
Rep. 5       1928               3794
Rep. 8       1929              10366
Rep. 12      1930              13560
Rep. 15      1931              29013
Rep. 32      1932              58328
Rep. 26      1933              61989
Rep. 32      1934              37628
Rep. 37      1935              16494
Rep. 41      1936              21675
Rep. 46      1937              22997
Rep. 41      1938               9333
Rep. 52      1939              10742
Rep. 58      1940               9447
Rep. 63      1941               6495
Rep. 64      1942               7246
Rep. 68      1943               6594
Rep. 66      1944              15669
Rep. 67      1945              17087
Rep. 68      1946               6006
Rep. 75      1947              11584
Rep. 77      1948              10207
Rep. 84      1949               7740
Rep. 85      1950              13324
Rep. 95      1951              12839
Rep. 99      1952              1178O
Rep. 103     1953              12664
Rep. 104     1954              10581
Rep. 104     1955               8257
Rep. 115     1956              22858
Rep. 115     1957              13653
Rep. 115     1958              17245
Rep. 119     1959               6975
Rep. 131     1960               8522
Rep. 137     1961              23751
Rep. 143     1962              19363
Rep. 149     1963              34217
Rep. 155     1964              33974
Rep. 164     1965              31744
Rep. 179     1966              53284
Rep. 184     1967              37511
Rep. 190     1968              27651
Rep. 191     1969              52608
Rep. 192     1970              29639
Rep. 193     1971              67274
Rep. 194     1972              90721
           Total:          1,069,733




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