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Re: (meteorobs) High rates
From Jure A. :
>Norman,
>
> You said that the meteor observers that tend to see more bright
>meteors
>should not expect much increased rates with increased LMs.
That wasn't my intention. Everybody should see more meteors with better
LMs, including more bright meteors.
> Speaking of the increase in numbers, by what factor does the number
>of
>sporadic meteors increase with a one magnitude gain in LM? This factor
>should be quite different for different observers...
I agree on that. My gain per half-mag improvement in LM is about 15%. The
bottom-heavy observers should gain a lot more.
> And the last thing, if the meteor observer's perception varies through
>
>the night (which it obviously does...), how are the results used then?
I am unaware of other studies on perception vs hour but there surely are
some. It's just another possible refinement that is not too significant for
ordinary observers. High perceptions have a lot more room to wander as I
have shown with Gates. I am being broad with the 30-50/hr sporadic rate for
Gates -- he did increase as the night progressed but the last hours any
further real increases were largely offset by his perception decrease.
>How are such results used.
I don't know how the results of Gates can be used. He was so unusual that
we spent almost all our time studying him rather than the results he was
getting.
In our two-week observing sessions from the Keys, Gates would amass a
meteor total of over 4000. It would take me all year to see that many.
There were six of us in 1973 and 1975 that stayed most of the period. We
all faced south rather than spreading around the sky. With all the others
coming from further north, one from northern New York, who would want to
face north when new stars and constellations were available in the south?
From latitude 25N you can get much of the southern sky and an excellent view
of Sagittarius halfway up. Then with all of us covering pretty much the
same area, we found out it was almost impossible to see a meteor that Gates
would not also see. In addition, Gates saw an equally large number of
meteors that no one else saw.
>And how are results from bottom-heavy observers compared
>with the top-heavy (??) observers?
Making do with averages from as many observers as possible to smooth out the
individual differences.
Norman
Norman W. McLeod III
Staff Advisor
American Meteor Society
Fort Myers, Florida
nmcleod@peganet.com
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