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(meteorobs) Re: WATCHING METEORITES FALL ON THE MOON
"George W. Kelley, Jr." wrote:
> There are two questions in my mind about this, and I toss them out for
> consideration:
>
> 1) Would it be best to use a low power eyepiece and fill the field of > view with the unlit portion of the Moon, or use higher powers and > view smaller areas?
>
Good question George! If I were taking on this project I would probably
use medium magnifications in the neighborhood of 200X as a happy medium.
Beyond this, unless your seeing is extraordinary, the increased
magnification would not justify the decreased sharpness of your image.
Using lower magnifications would produce sharper images but then you
have the possibility of seeing only the largest and brightest events.
> 2) Considering the geometry of Earth-Moon-Leonid stream that evening, > is there some area of the "visible" unlit portion of the moon likely > to experience more meteor impacts per unit surface area than the > remainder of the "visible" unlit portion?
I would guess that your chances of seeing such an event would increase
the closer you look toward the terminator rather than the edge of the
moon as this is the area where the meteoroids will be striking the moon
at a more head-on angle.
I hope this helps!
Bob Lunsford
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