Dale Ireland wrote in part: > ... I have done lunar occultation timing for years, starting with the stopwatch method. > Careful studies showed that while many people "thought" they were getting 0.1 second > or less accuracy they always were around 0.3 second accuracy. Just nerve conduction > and muscle contraction takes significant time. I agree. 0.1-second accuracy for a one-time event (e.g. star blink-out, or worse yet star blink-on) would be pretty impressive (read "unbelievable") reaction time. In satellite flash timing, however, flash period accuracy of 0.1-second or better can be achieved since the individual's relatively constant reaction time is taken out of the equation. For flash periods under 15 seconds, I would also contend that anticipation permits relatively high accuracy in the flash times themselves -- not just the periods. And of course by timing multiple flashes, the flash period can often be determined to better than a hundredth of a second. Cheers, Rob ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe from SeeSat-L by sending a message with 'unsubscribe' in the SUBJECT to SeeSat-L-request@lists.satellite.eu.org http://www2.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 14 2001 - 11:44:07 PST