[vsnet-chat 871] Re: Magnitudes, sequences, etc

[bas@lowell.Lowell.Edu (Brian Skiff)]

     I agree with Kato-san's points about the difficulty of doing all-sky
photometry, and don't expect most amateurs to be willing/able to do such
observing.  But why is there not even one amateur or group that can do
comparison sequences?  _Nobody_.
     In re the de facto adoption of GSC magnitudes in asteroid astrometry:
this too, is a sad fact, and the net result is that we know almost nothing
about the physical properties of the plethora of new asteroid discoveries.
the infamous case of 97XF11 is a glaring example:  the news media quoted
a size based on this rotten photometry as though the size was known to high
precision, when in fact if you look at the published results, the uncertainty
on the size is actually +/- 300 percent.
     This problem will get better in the coming few years as large surveys
gather calibrated multicolor data on everything in the sky (the TASS project
is an amateur example leading to this).  But that won't help us tonight!

\Brian

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