Have you ever seen a shooting star? Sure you have. And you will also have noticed colourful rings around the sun, which appear from time to time. People who witnessed auroras or noctilucent clouds will surely be less. All these phenomena have in common that they are somehow connected to the atmosphere of the earth. People who are interested in those phenomena have joined in the "Arbeitskreis Meteore e.V." (AKM). In the present mode, our association has been existing since 1990, but it originates from a group of observers who joined in 1975. Nowadays the AKM has about 70 members. We also take care of the workshops on meteors and atmospheric phenomena of the German association of amateur astronomers "Vereinigung der Sternfreunde e.V." (VdS).
Our goals are:
- enabling the members to engage intensively with meteors, halos, auroras and other phenomena related to these,
- the co-ordination of amateur astronomical research on these topics,
- supporting suitable observer networks,
- ensuring the availability of observation data for scientific purpose,
- supporting the exchange of information and cooperation on national and international level,
- making popular of the results of our own investigations and of international research on the topics mentioned above.
We usually issue our information sheet called METEOROS every month. The word "meteoros" is Greek and originally referred to all phenomena in the atmosphere. These are meteors, halos, noctilucent clouds, auroras, and so on, which are all considered to be of equal importance. Once a year, at a weekend in March or April, the members of the workshop gather at our traditional spring meeting. There we exchange our latest observation results, engage new projects and renew the contacts among the observers.
- Information on Membership in the AKM e.V.
