International Meteor Organization
Electronic form help
- The date is the local double-date of the night you were out. Do not worry about UT dates.
- The geographical coordinates are longitude/latitude. Note that some internet services work with latitude/longitude.
- Please report short observing periods for the maximum night. Period lengths of 15 minutes or less are recommended. The electronic form offers 10 periods by default. There is a link to customize the form. But I recommend to split your observation into smaller individual observations. Input may be spoiled by internet connection or other technical problems, and the loss is smaller then.
- The field of view is in degrees both in RA and Dec. If you wish to convert RA = 13h into degrees, multiply it by 15, RA = 195 deg.
- Teff is the effective observing time in decimal hours. If an observing period lasted from 0219-0230, it is 11 min = 0.183 h.
- F is the field obstruction correction. If clouds disturbed 10% of your field (not of the sky) during one period, the fraction of field covered is 10% / 100% = 0.1. Then F = 1/(1-0.1) = 1.11. Other examples are: 20% -> 1.25, 30% -> 1.43, 40% -> 1.67, 50% -> 2.00. Just use these numbers if you feel usure about the maths.
- Lm is the stellar limiting magnitude. It is the magnitude of the faintest stars visible to the naked eye; it's observer-specific. If you face transparent clouds, do not report both a cloud cover and a reduced limiting magnitude. An Lm reduction is usually sufficient.
- Magnitude distributions of the Quadrantids should be given for a maximum of two combined periods. Please also give the magnitude distributions of the other showers (ANT and COM) and the sporadic meteors. One distribution per night is sufficient. You may need to increase the number of magnitude distributions shown in the form by the 'customize' link at the top. Do that before entering any data.
- The ecliptical source ANT (Antihelion source) does not show a radiant position at the moment. Do not worry about this.
- If you notice an error in the data you submitted, please send a message to geert@barentsen.be and visual@mo.net and do not submit the observation again.