METEOR ECHO DURATIONS AND VISUAL MAGNITUDES

Abstract

The statistical relation between the radio echo duration and the visual magnitude has been investigated for approximately 3300 meteors observed on the combined Dominion Observatory–National Research Council program at Ottawa. Both echo durations and visual magnitudes were reduced to absolute values, defined as those for a meteor in the zenith at a height of 100 km. For meteors in the absolute magnitude range +5 to −5 a straight line relation exists between log absolute duration and absolute magnitude, longer durations corresponding to brighter meteors. Applying current meteor theory to these data indicates that a meteor of absolute magnitude +5 produces 2 × 1012 electrons per cm. of path length. For Perseid meteors the ratio between ionization produced and visual luminosity is almost constant in the range +5 to −5 absolute magnitude. For other meteors this ratio seems to decrease somewhat for the brighter objects. These results lead to higher electron densities for the bright meteors than had previously been estimated.