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(meteorobs) Florida Keys Night Skies: Darkest and best I have ever seen!
Both Norman W. McLeod and I can vouch for the 7.0 - 7.5 limiting
magnitudes in the Lower Florida Keys as we observed there often in the
late 1970's in early 1980's. However I am pleasantly surprised to hear
that these type of skies are still available with the subtle growth &
development experienced in the Florida Keys. Then again with just U.S. 1
linking a series of "islands," there is only so much growth & development
that can take place. Plus, I have traveled around the world to different
places and even out in the middle of the ocean, I have not seen limiting
magnitudes that surpass the ones I saw while observing in the Florida
Keys. Just thought you all should know that this is indeed a very
realistic claim!
In Astronomical Affinity - Felix A. Martinez
* This morning (0054 EDT) I saw a beautiful Kappa Cygnid (0.0 magnitude
and orange). It was the first real nice KC that I have seen since August
1977. *
On Sat, 18 Aug 2001 17:12:26 +0200 (MET DST)
<peter.atanackov@guest.arnesdot si> writes:
> > Lew,
> > Are you serious? LM >7.5 and >7.0 in Moonlight??? Ok, maybe
> > Long Key is a fine dark site, but I was observing 3km higher in
> the
> > atmosphere than you were at one of the better spots in the world,
> > and my best LM was 6.7, dropping to 6.2 in moonlight. Given a few
> > tenths extra atmospheric absorption at your sea level location and
>
> > higher humidity, that implies an equivalent LM~8.0 from Haleakala?
> I'm not Lew, but I'd like to add my thoughts to this. Perhaps what's
> missing here is a Bortle Class estimate. Remember, one man's LM 5.5
> sky
> can be another one's 6.3 (in our observing group the difference can
> amount
> to almost a full magnitude between certain observers!). Do you
> regularly
> see the Zodiacal band and the Gegenschein from Haleakala?
> Also, Haleakala is 3000+m high. Perhaps oxygen deprivation is
> already
> playing a role here. I remember a similar comment from Marco
> Langbroek -
> when he observed from Mongolia in 1998 (Leonids) he couldn't get
> past LM
> 7.1, although the sky were perfectly dark (Marco correct me if I'm
> talking
> nonsense here...). Also, perhaps Lew's experience as a deep-sky
> observer
> has somehow 'altered' his response to faint stars?
>
> >
> > Yet your SPO counts, are not much higher than mine, especially if
> > you include Apex in them? Seems like a significant disparity here
> > between perception of meteors and fixed stars. Maybe getting a bit
>
> > overenthusiastic after months under the bright orange skies of
> > metro Boston??
> Significant disparities between perception of meteors and fixed
> stars do
> occur. Take Norman for example, he *routinely* sees LM 7.3 from his
> location, yet his sporadic counts are relatively low regarding the
> LM.
> As for getting overenthusiastic, I'm not speaking for Lew, but I
> think a
> good meteor observer, no, any observer, should not be biased by such
> elements. I hope I'm not wrong.
>
> Clear skies and good LMs + high Spor counts! :)
>
> Jure A.
>
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