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Re: (meteorobs) Talk on Meteor Obseving
Robert, even for a group of experienced amateur astronomers, I always start out
with a section on what meteors and showers ARE: the details are rich enough, and
so poorly covered in most magazines and guidebooks, that almost everyone in your
audience will benefit from a few slides/overheads on these key topics:
Meteoroid streams as "comet dust tails" and as "rivers of dust"; how meteoroid
streams produce meteor showers; what a "radiant" is (and is not - no, not all
meteors appear near their radiant!); on the physical forces affecting streams
(some of these are really unique to tiny bodies like meteoroids); and probably
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, how *amateurs* really do much of the observing that
allows us to hypothesize and confirm our knowledge of all of the above...
Then once you've got their interest piqued and their respect established in
meteor science, it's an easy segue into "How can YOU contribute in meteors?"
Here, having a set of Web sites and maybe even a few brochures to hand out
will help answer many tougher questions: I know NAMN produced a brochure for
printout and hand-folding some time ago.
In the meantime, keep in mind that you DON'T have to know everything about
meteor science to talk about it: your real goal is to leave your audience
thirsty to know more, not to slake that thirst all in the moment. :)
Clear skies, and good luck on your talk!
Lew
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