Visual observations

All you need to study meteors are a deckchair, a notebook and your eyes, says the BAA’s John Mason

A lot of people visually observe meteors but don’t collect any data, which is a shame. All you need is a chair from which you can comfortably view the sky and something to record your information with, either a notebook or voice recorder. It doesn’t matter what direction you look, but note it down. Also record what the sky’s like: how clear it is in terms of cloud and what the limiting magnitude is (the brightness of the faintest object that can be seen with your optical instrument). Then write down what time you started observing and your time zone to avoid later confusion. Then just watch. When you see a meteor, note the time it appeared and what kind of meteor it was. Was it from a shower or…

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The Astronomer's Yearbook 2019 (Digital) - 1 Issue, Astronomer's Yearbook 2020

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