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Re: (meteorobs) UPDATE: Telescopic Meteor Report Form, GRALE, 06/07 Mar 2000
Thanks to Lew for explaining some of the points and advertising
telescopic observation. We're looking towards online submission and
having a format which can be processed by software to derive
the meteor positions on the sky and to convert to PosDat format
for analysis with the RADIANT software. It should also be human
readable.
> Here's my next draft... When we have a final form for this report, I'll
> do another report on some telescopic plots I did from the slopes of the
> Mauna Kea volcano in Hawai'i (home of the Keck, Subaru and other Really,
> Really Big Telescopes), during last year's Perseid meteor shower peak.
Much bigger than your 127-cm refractor, Lew! See below.
> Then I'd also encourage others to take advantage of "slow meteor season"
> in June, to get out and try using your binculars or small telescopes to
> plot meteors with the IMO charts! As our thread on the "LINEARids" and
> other obscure showers make clear, there's no telling what contribution
> some of us may end up making with telescopes, after a few hours effort!
Charts are available from Lew (some sets) or myself. Now that a
hiatus at work is almost over, I've returned to the revamp of the
special telescopic-meteor charts using latest catalogues. This I hope
will allow you to make charts suitable for your telescope or binocular
and your sky conditions as needed from the Web.
> INSTRUMENT: 127 cm f/5 altazimuth refractor.
Still bragging?
> CONDITIONS: Possible FG, no wind, temp 38oF.
What's FG? Might mention the lateral inversion.
> Session #: 1 2
> Begin UT: 0605 0710
> End UT: 0644 0800
> Duration(m): 39 50
> Tot. Breaks(m): 0 8
> Teff(-dead,h): 0.48 0.53
> LM: >11.5 >11.5
> Chart: TC103 TC147
The columns don't align for me. Must be using tabs. Yuck! Please
use spaces for human readers.
Chart set TC are designed for ~80-mm binoculars. The D set I use
has the lateral inversion but the field diameter is only 3.2 degrees,
and some margin is needed unless you have a tracking telescope.
> Chart AB: 162.7 161.9
> fiduciary BD: 161.1 161.1
> distances DC: 161.9 161.9
> (in mm) CA: 161.1 161.1
These look reasonable. Where the values differ along an axis as in
the case of AB and DC for field #1, I use the average. Photocopiers
do distort the charts slightly. Scaling these figures to a canonical
distance on the original charts allows for the distortion to first
order. The main errors come from the plotting.
> # Time Mag Vel Type Rel Tr Xb Yb Xe Ye Remarks
> UT A-F I-III sec (In mm from lower left inner corner)
> == ==== ==== == == === ==== ===== ===== ===== ===== ==============
> 1 0610 10.5 C? II I 99.5 112.5 93.5 114.0
> 2 0615 10 B II II 75.0 129.0 72.5 136.0
> 3 0622 9.5 C OI II 118.5 127.0 111.0 120.5
> 4 0628 5 A OO I 45.0 75.0 121.5 76.5 Very slow!
> 5 0635 3 D OO I 4.0 41.0 96.0 81.5 155.5 No color: Why?
> == PAUSE
> 6 0715 10 E II II 99.5 94.5 105.0 94.0 My first Fast!
> 7 0721 9 D II II 110.0 108.0 113.5 103.0
> 8 0738 10 C II I 113.5 84.0 117.0 76.0
> 9 0752 11 D II I 128.5 74.5 129.5 80.0
> 10 0758 10.5 B II I 132.5 80.0 132.0 73.0
> == END
Looks good. We might reformat Xb etc. description for neatness.
Having some comment character such as ! or # or == is a good idea. I
tend to write my comments about conditions and LMs bracketed in the
remarks. Placing these on a new comment line is clearer for the
online version.
Thanks again Lew
Malcolm
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