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Re: (meteorobs) Moonlit Leonids

>> I firmly believe the latter is a
psychological factor and not a physiological factor involved with moonlight.
People think Lm's cannot be high with moonlight, so they estimate low Lm's -
they don't try as well as under non-moonlight conditions perhaps....

A tip is to try to hide the moon from direct vision, e.g. behind a wall,
tree, house or something like that. And take a part of the sky which is
opposite the moon. <<

I have to disagree with you on this Marco....I've done every trick in the book....including knowing exactly where a star should be during a star count and stare at that spot and around that spot, using both direct and averted vision....and still end up with a LM usually around 4.7. Just can't squeeze out that last star to reach 5.0 most of the time.  I highly don't think it is necessarily a psychological thing for most folks. I know it's not for me. Some folks are probably "gifted" to perceive dimmer stars under both dark and heavily moonlit stars. If you are one of these folks....which Marco obviously is, it would naturally seem easy for him to pick up these dimmer star count stars and conclude that those that can't must be doing something wrong.
GeoZay
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