13,202 research outputs found
Optical electronics for meteor observations
Spectral observations of meteors have been carried out for several years using an optical electronics facility. Interest has centered on faint meteors and their trails in the period of intensive meteor showers. Over 800 meteors were registered during the observation period, with spectrograms obtained for 170 of these. A total of 86 meteors were photographed from two sites and for 25 of these spectrograms of the meteors as well as their trails were obtained. All meteors have undergone routine processing in order to determine atmospheric characteristics. Results are discussed
SuprimeCam Observation of Sporadic Meteors during Perseids 2004
We report the serendipitous findings of 13 faint meteors and 44 artificial
space objects by Subaru SuprimeCam imaging observations during 11-16 August
2004. The meteors, at about 100km altitude, and artificial satellites/debris in
orbit, at 500km altitude or higher, were clearly discriminated by their
apparent defocused image sizes. CCD photometry of the 13 meteors, including 1
Perseid, 1 Aquarid, and 11 sporadic meteors, was performed. We defined a peak
video-rate magnitude by comparing the integrated photon counts from the
brightest portion of the track traversed within 33ms to those from a 0-mag star
during the same time duration. This definition gives magnitudes in the range
4.0< V_{vr} <6.4 and 4.1< I_{vr}<5.9 for these 13 meteors. The corresponding
magnitude for virtual naked-eye observers could be somewhat fainter especially
for the V-band observation, in which the [OI] 5577 line lasting about 1 sec as
an afterglow could contribute to the integrated flux of the present 5-10 min
CCD exposures. Although the spatial resolution is insufficient to resolve the
source size of anything smaller than about 1 m, we developed a new estimate of
the collisionally excited column diameter of these meteors. A diameter as small
as a few mm was derived from their collisionally excited photon rates, meteor
speed, and the volume density of the oxygen atoms at the 100km altitude. The
actual column diameter of the radiating zone, however, could be as large as few
100m because the excited atoms travel that distance before they emit forbidden
lines in 0.7 sec of its average lifetime. Among the 44 artificial space
objects, we confirmed that 17 were cataloged satellites/space debris.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, submitted to PAS
Activity of the Lyrid meteor stream
The activity of the Lyrid meteor stream is in most years fairly low with a visual rate at maximum (21-22 April) of 5-10 meteors per hour. Short bursts of very high Lyrid activity, with visual hourly rates of 100 or more, have sometimes been reported. These observations generally refer to faint visual meteors. The reported bursts of high activity have occurred in a very narrow interval of solar longitudes (deg 31.24 to 31.38 equinox 1950.0), while the recurrent or 'normal' maximum for bright meteors occurs at solar longitude deg 31.6, or slightly later. A mass separation of the meteors in the shower is thus indicated
Spectral analysis of four meteors
Four meteor spectra are analyzed for chemical composition and radiative processes. The chemical compositions of the Taurid, Geminid, and Perseid meteors were found to be similar to that of a typical stony meteorite. The chemical composition of the sporadic meteor was found to be similar to that of a nickel iron meteorite. The radiation from optical meteors was found to be similar to that of a low temperature gas, except that strong, anomalous ionic radiation is superposed on the neutral radiation in bright, fast meteors
Image-orthicon spectra of Geminids in 1969
The spectra of 25 meteors, recorded with an image orthicon technique in December 1969, are studied in relation to similar records made in August of the same year. Of 19 Geminid meteors in the absolute visual magnitude range 0 to +2, only one showed any evidence of the forbidden line of oxygen at 5577 A, while all Perseid meteors recorded in August exhibited the oxygen line, a result of the large difference in geocentric velocity between the two showers. Atoms identified in faint Geminid meteors include neutral iron, magnesium, calcium and sodium. The molecular bands of nitrogen are also observed
Meteor light curves: the relevant parameters
We investigate a uniform sample of 113 light curves (LCs) of meteors
collected at the Wise Observatory in November 2002 while observing the Leonid
meteor shower. We use previously defined descriptors such as the skewness F and
a recently defined pointedness parameter along with a number of other
measurable or derived quantities to explore the parameter space in search of
meaningful LC descriptors. We make extensive use of statistical techniques to
reveal links among the variables and to understand their relative importance.
In particular, we show that meteors with long-duration trails rise slowly to
their maximal brightness and also decay slowly from there while showing milder
flaring than other meteors. Early skewed LCs show a fast rise to the peak. We
show that the duration of te luminous phase of the meteor is th emost important
variable differentiating among the 2002 LCs. The skewness parameter F appears
only as the 2nd or 3rd in explaining the LC variance. We suggest that the
pointedness parameter P could possibly be useful to discriminate among meteors
from different showers, or to compare observations and model predictions.Comment: 10 pages (2 figures) in press with MNRA
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