[meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor Australian astro photographer says he snapped a pic of a meteor through his telescope. Its a 4 page thread so far, seems its up for debate. Imagine that. What do you guys think? __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope
IF this were a timed exposure, then the head would have been a constant diameter along the trail. IMHO Elton --- On Sat, 8/29/09, Mike Hankey mike.han...@gmail.com wrote: From: Mike Hankey mike.han...@gmail.com Subject: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope To: meteoritelist meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009, 2:08 AM http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor Australian astro photographer says he snapped a pic of a meteor through his telescope. Its a 4 page thread so far, seems its up for debate. Imagine that. What do you guys think? __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope: NOT
Absolutely *NOT* a meteor. And the astrophotographer's skin is very thin. Stuart's posts have been rational, polite, helpful and (most importantly) correct. I'm afraid the same cannot be said of many of Chris's counterposts. --Rob -Original Message- From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com]on Behalf Of Mike Hankey Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:09 PM To: meteoritelist Subject: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor Australian astro photographer says he snapped a pic of a meteor through his telescope. Its a 4 page thread so far, seems its up for debate. Imagine that. What do you guys think? __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope
With virtual certainty, the image is not a meteor. I've seen images that look like this caused by the mount doing a slew during the exposure. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Mike Hankey mike.han...@gmail.com To: meteoritelist meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 12:08 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor Australian astro photographer says he snapped a pic of a meteor through his telescope. Its a 4 page thread so far, seems its up for debate. Imagine that. What do you guys think? __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope
(Our) Chris wrote: With virtual certainty, the image is not a meteor. I've seen images that look like this caused by the mount doing a slew during the exposure. .. and, by the way, Mr GregBradley should be a bit more careful when using the word meteorite instead of the appropriate terms meteoroid or meteor depending on what he wants/wanted to say! ;-) M e t e o r i t e s are very interesting to watch. Some are really unbelievably fast... Best Saturday afternoon wishes, Bernd __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope
IF this were a timed exposure, then the head would have been a constant diameter along the trail. IMHO I looked at this photo on the website and made a copy with which I brightened and enlarged. In my opinion, this photo looks a lot like what I would expect of a meteor thru a small telescope. With my brightened version, you can see a solid trail along with the squiggily residual train outside of the trail. I get the impression that this meteor was probably in the range of -2 to about -6 in magnitude. Not likely to produce any meteorites. The head wouldn't necessarily be a constant diameter along the trail. The meteor could easily start out very thin and fatten as it travels along and flares with ablation. It can also flare off and on or dim and bright...that is in and out of the camera's ability to capture it fully. It looks normal to me. Maybe not all meteors will look like this, but still nothing unusual. It's a keeper George Zay __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope
It would be very helpful to know the diameter of the field and more importantly, the RA and declination of the meteor. It's possibly just a bright star that somehow left a trail. Anyone in contact with the fellow who shot it? Thanks, Bob __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope: NOT
After reading the entire thread, I'd have to agree with your assessment Rob. Chris (the astrophotographer) seems very defensive when offered possible alternative explanations (like a slew off a focus star with shutter open) for his interpreted meteor. Meteors I've seen captured photographically look nothing like that which was taken by Chris. gary On Aug 28, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Rob Matson wrote: Absolutely *NOT* a meteor. And the astrophotographer's skin is very thin. Stuart's posts have been rational, polite, helpful and (most importantly) correct. I'm afraid the same cannot be said of many of Chris's counterposts. --Rob -Original Message- From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com]on Behalf Of Mike Hankey Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:09 PM To: meteoritelist Subject: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor Australian astro photographer says he snapped a pic of a meteor through his telescope. Its a 4 page thread so far, seems its up for debate. Imagine that. What do you guys think? __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Gary Fujihara AstroDay Institute 105 Puhili Place, Hilo, HI 96720 (808) 640-9161, fuj...@mac.com http://astroday.net __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope: NOT
Perhaps more like this; http://www.ursa.fi/ursa/jaostot/meteorit/images/meteorikuva1.jpg (Photo by Eero Savolainen) best, pekka s Gary Fujihara kirjoitti: After reading the entire thread, I'd have to agree with your assessment Rob. Chris (the astrophotographer) seems very defensive when offered possible alternative explanations (like a slew off a focus star with shutter open) for his interpreted meteor. Meteors I've seen captured photographically look nothing like that which was taken by Chris. gary On Aug 28, 2009, at 9:43 PM, Rob Matson wrote: Absolutely *NOT* a meteor. And the astrophotographer's skin is very thin. Stuart's posts have been rational, polite, helpful and (most importantly) correct. I'm afraid the same cannot be said of many of Chris's counterposts. --Rob -Original Message- From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com]on Behalf Of Mike Hankey Sent: Friday, August 28, 2009 11:09 PM To: meteoritelist Subject: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor Australian astro photographer says he snapped a pic of a meteor through his telescope. Its a 4 page thread so far, seems its up for debate. Imagine that. What do you guys think? __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Gary Fujihara AstroDay Institute 105 Puhili Place, Hilo, HI 96720 (808) 640-9161, fuj...@mac.com http://astroday.net __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.71/2333 - Release Date: 08/29/09 06:39:00 __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope: NOT
I need to revise and extend my remarks from before. This probably is a meteor in spite of our first judgments. I too piped in as an early naysayer because I was thinking in the film paradigm. I've rethought the image in the digital paradigm. Long and boring and technical rationale: I've looked at the photo through an image processing application where I can zoom down to pixels and believe I can account for some things which we casually dismissed before because it was not what we were used to seeing. There is some actual color data in the head of the fireball when I adjust the Gamma. 1. If we assume the bulbous tip was a terminal burst not just the end of the exposure then there need not be an trail of equal diameter all the way back up the trace on the image that is the width of the bulb. I've looked at the trail and it appears to have a uniform width save for the tip. The wispy segmented trail is a result of a fast moving object crossing many sectors of a Charged Coupling Device (CCD) while several passes of the frame scan program are going on.(my interpretation) The color data should be present all along the trail unless the bulb is a terminal flaring representing a several-magnitude flash of energy as we see in a terminal burst. 2. The tail is not as squiggly as we first thought, but seems to be an artifact of the CCD array and how the image information is captured. Be it remembered that while film collects the entire image the entire time of the exposure, digital timed exposure imagery is the summing/melding of thousands of passes over the CCD sector by sector, pixel by pixel. Each pixel has to be given permission to purge information to make ready for the next pass. even at computer Hz rates this can cause a pile up of information as the data is read and written to storage. Some pixels simply will not be ready to receive and hold light data as the fireball is passing. 3. To make a timed exposure in a digital camera, the data of one pass is added to the data of all the cycles before it. The image data is also processed by several algorithms to try to accommodate a range of conditions--none of which are optimized for a high speed intensely bright object on a black background. Likewise, we have no way of determining when the meteor passed as all scan data is lost once added to the image file. 4. I won't delve into the full technical aspects of latency of signal and how the microprocessor polls the signal from each pixel on the CCD, etc. But- for an allegory we are all familiar with, think of how wagon wheels in old westerns appear to spin backwards on film. It looks that way owing to a difference in frame rate of the film and the actual speed of the wheel's rotation. A timing discrepancy in a digital frame gives rise to a smeared streak with black gaps at the spots where the data is being reset so we can get a -==_ --==-_ -==-_ -==--_ -==_ for what would have been a continuous straight line to our eye. 5. When we look at the mask of a CRT TV that hides the edge of the phosphors to make them appear uniform, we see a grid of black rectangles. CCDs have a similar grid/blind grid. When an object crosses the screen horizontally-- keeping on just that row the line is straight. Cross it diagonally and it looks like a series of step downs or step ups. Add in the aberration of lens curvature, a slight internal vibration from the drive motor, process through a jpg compression algorithm and you get a squiggly line even at normal zoom! All in all, in light of what I remember now about digital still-frame photography, this is a righteous shot. Elton --- On Sat, 8/29/09, Rob Matson mojave_meteori...@cox.net wrote: Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Aussie Photographs Meteor Through Telescope: NOT, ... Absolutely *NOT* a meteor.--Rob http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=49164highlight=meteor __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
