Observing Meteor Showers

Abstract

Since the turn of this century, there has been a significant change in the way meteor showers have been observed and recorded. For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most observations relied on astronomers—often amateur astronomers—who used nothing more technical than their eyes, a pen and paper. However, the advent of cheap, reliable technology now means that it is now much easier and cost-effective to use digital cameras, video and radio detection equipment to monitor meteor activity. From a purely scientific point of view, this change has resulted in a significant increase in high quality raw data that, thanks to powerful desktop and mainframe computers, has allowed astronomers to probe the nature of meteoroid streams as never before. But what the technology cannot do is make the observer’s heart jump with excitement when a piece of cosmic debris comes to a spectacular end in the night sky. Meteor astronomy is a dynamic subject that, along with the aurora and a total eclipse of the Sun, is one of the few branches of astronomy that can surprise and amaze the observer in real time.