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Re: (meteorobs) Re: NM naked-eye meteors+ more

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 nmcleod@peganet.com wrote:
> After about 1960 the knowledge that meteors can be seen without a telescope
> was lost by the public due to spreading light pollution.  Hardly anyone
> today is aware you can see meteors with the unaided eye.  The media is of no
> help in getting the word out either as evidenced by the following,

Can you send some of these people around to me please?  We can always do with
some telescopic observers. (-:

> question is  3) do you need a telescope to see them.  Joan has experienced
> these exact questions from people that she has told of my interest in
> astronomy.  I outgrew planetariums by age 14.  But I did go to the Hayden
> Planetarium in New York before heading to Africa to see the 1973 June 30
> eclipse.  After learning in my earliest days that this was the biggest one,
> I had to see it.  The Vega bulb was burned out that day and I informed the
> personnel.

I like going to planetaria to learn good analogies and popular descriptions
of complex astronomical phenomena, so I can use them myself.

I had hoped that some planetaria would do Leonid simulations, both for
entertainment, but also to train/calibrate observers for an outburst.
Whilst Sirko's software is excellent, it doesn't mimic the wide field
of view lying under the celestial sphere.  Have readers heard of any such
planetarium shows?

> didn't see any of !   Bill was saying that I stopped seeing them ; I was
> asking where they all went.  Another time with seven of us observing, Bill
> saw seven meteors in two minutes while no one else saw anything.  He
> wondered what our problem was.

When I did group watches in the seventies, I used to see 2-6x more
than the others.  You can only call what you see.  Had I not been as
proficient at seeing faint moving objects, I might have gone on to
concentrate on photoelectric then CCD observations of variable stars.
I admire Norman's dedication since his perception for the LM is
mediocre.

It was refreshing to observe with Lew who has a similar LM and
perception, though mine has deteriorated during the last 15 years,
probably from too much close-vision work with computers.

Malcolm

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