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(meteorobs) Counting meteors with a Palm Handheld computer
Hi folks
I have written a small program for the Palm handheld to record
meteor countings directly under the sky. Jost Jahn has just
placed the software on his forthcoming meteor website
(thanks, Jost !!!). The link is
http://www.meteoredot de/intro.htm
The basic motivation for this project was the fact that data analysis
is still a bottleneck in meteor observing, especially when it comes
to thousands of meteors seen in a meteor storm. There is some
software available to make this easier, but meteor counts on tape
or on paper roll have still to be typed into a computer, which is a
tedious process. I know of people who observed meteors
with me months ago and up to now did not find the time to
analyse their tapes. I also know a prominent member of the meteor
community who needed 12 hours to analyse his > 3500 meteors of
the 2001 meteor storm night.
The obvious solution to that kind of trouble is to collect the data in
a digital format right from the beginning. The Palm provides a good
hardware platform for doing so. It is not larger than
a micro tape recorder, very convenient to use and works under field
conditions. Data can be transferred to a PC, where complete
analysis is a matter of minutes.
In my program the observer first enters the streams currently
visible in the IMO three letter code and marks the most important
one. In observation mode 7 large fields show up on the touch
screen: 0 to 6. If you see a meteor of the most important stream of
3rd magnitude simply click field 3.
Hitting the keys of the Palm enables you to handle more complex
cases like entering negative magnitudes, half-magnitude intervals,
sporadics, meteors of other active streams, cloudiness estimates
or starfield counts, etc. All this can be done rapidly without looking
on the Palm. Audible signals will provide some kind of interactive
feedback and help to identify and correct wrong entries.
Each meteor is recorded with an accurate time stamp. You do not
have to bother with recording time marks during the observation,
and for data analysis, you can freely choosee the time interval after
the observation.
Even the smallest of the current Palm models will do. The software
takes about 200 KB, and 1 MB of memory is enough for about
75000 meteors. Cheap models like the M100 (2 MB, currently
being sold out for a very low price), or M105 have the advantage
that their monochrome display has a very low power drain and run
on one set of AAA cells for nearly 30 hours. The display of my
M100 was still working at -8 deg C. Other monochrome Palms with
larger displays may be even more convenient.
The more expensive color Palms with their much higher power
drain are possibly more sensitive to chilly temperatures.
After the observation data are "hot synced" to a PC and can be
analysed with Ivan Goethals excellent Windows software Meteor
Companion to create IMO-style report forms.
I tested this system with this year's Lyrids, Perseids and Geminids
and took it to Korea for the Leonid meteor storm. I can now send
my report form minutes after returning home from an observing run.
I won't get back to the tape recorder age !
At
http://www.meteoredot de/intro.htm
you can read the manual and download a complete package
containing everything you need, including the software, Hot Paw
Basic (required to run MeteorCount), Ivan Goethals
Meteor Companion for the data analysis and a converter from Palm
to Meteor Companion formats.
All software in the package is freeware, except for Hot Paw Basic,
which is 20$ shareware (dropping into a somewhat restricted
"demo mode" after 30 days, which does not affect its
ability to run MeteorCount.)
I would be glad to hear of any people using this system and
appreciate your suggestions and comments.
Hartwig Luethen
H. Luethen
h.luthen@botanik.uni-hamburgdot de
priv: Behnstr. 13, D-22767 Hamburg
lab: Institut fuer Allgemeine Botanik, Ohnhorststr. 18
D-22609 Hamburg, Germany
Tel: 0049 (0)40-3800551 priv
0049 (0)40-428-16-337
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