2009 11 08 Prince George Fireball

On November 8, 2009, Wayne, at RDL Observatory, reported a capture of a bright fireball to our network. He told us:

“All
Late night capture, direction of travel westward. Event seen at Telkwa BC. UFO analyzer places impact area some where in the Terrace / Telkwa area but calibration of ufo analyzer is uncertain.  Witness at Telkwa said phosphor like drops falling between him and hill 1 mile to his north.  No Sound heard. enjoy
wayne”

Wayne sent a movie of the event to the BCMN group. You can view it here:

 

Upon receipt of Wayne’s report Brower wrote Alan Hildebrand, Coordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre, and asked if he was getting any additional reports of the event. He said he had not heard of the event.

In between e-mails Hildebrand checked back in his mail and found the alert Wayne had sent earlier. (It’s always  good to follow up if you don’t hear back).

CBC carried and article the next day. You can view the article by clicking here.

On November 9th Hidlebrand (personal communication to Brower) summarized to the MIAC group. The fireball was:

  1. Seen widely.
  2. It caused explosive booms and cast ground shadows.
  3. He estimated the fireball to be in the  -17 to -18 magnitude range.
  4. Estimate ‘conservatively in 100 kg to 1 tonne order of magnitude’.
  5. Had an east to west motion (and apparently some south to north and at least modestly steep) which would be reasonable for prefall orbits.
  6. Was probably a meteorite dropper.

No other BCMN camera recorded the fireball.

 

Allsky founder Dick Spalding died Feb 8

Father of Meteor Allsky Networks, Richard Spalding died Feb 8.

[Excerpts from an article by Tom Dorman.]

Dick passed away Wed, Feb 8 2017, after battling multiple heart issues this past year.  Dick was the Founder of the SkySentinel Allsky Network (Sandia National Laboratories) and was instrumental in setting up and running the meteor fireball camera Systems in the U.S. and around the world.  Allsky camera systems can now be bought off the shelf but back in the 1990’s Dick was giving the camera systems to willing amateurs in support of the North America fireball network.  (Locally he sent Allsky camera systems to a number of nodes in the BC Meteor network in Canada in 2011. )  Dick gave graciously of his time and always was willing to answer questions from even lowly amateurs such as ourselves.

These early camera systems gave a better understanding of meteors, fireball events, meteor showers and their origins. Some of the early fireball cameras that Dick gave out to many amateurs were through DOD grants but many were paid for out of his own money.

Source: http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot.ca/2017/02/father-of-meteor-allsky-networks.html

Lindley Johnson, Planetary Defense Officer at NASA wrote: “He was a great man as well as an insightful scientist and a hero to us all, albeit largely unsung. It is nice to see this latest paper come out and know that he was active to the end in uncovering the mysteries of nature. He will of course be greatly missed, but I hope he was heartened in his last days by seeing us finally making progress in getting bolide reports instituted into our warning infrastructure. In his memory, we will redouble our efforts to make full use of what he had shown us of what is possible to better understand the science of natural objects entering our atmosphere in service of better protection of all human populations and our collective society.”

Source: NASA CAMS: cams.seti.org

Leonid Meteor Shower and Northern Lights 2014 Nov 17.9

The LEONID METEOR SHOWER rapidly approaches us on Sunday night/ Monday morning, Nov 16/17, when the Earth passes through dust and ice particles from comet Tempel-Tuttle. Meteor counts are estimated at around 15 per hour this year (or one meteor every 4 minutes). The crescent Moon is below the Eastern horizon until around 1am, so the skies will be fairly dark. The Leonid meteors are travelling swiftly at 71 km/s which can create fast green ionization trails 70 to 120km high in the upper atmosphere.

Leo, the meteor radiant, rises about midnight (can you see the backwards question mark framing the head and mane of Leo the Lion in the constellation photo above, with Regulus as the dot?). Big bright Jupiter is a white dot in front of Leo (not shown here). The higher Leo rises, the more meteors to be seen. Thus, the best time is after midnight until about 6am. The actual peak is Monday Nov 17 at 22:00 hr universal time or (minus 7) that’s 3pm Mountain Standard Time, or 2pm Pacific.

Crescent Moon

The crescent Moon rises at 1am, just under the belly of Leo, which gives a glow which drowns out the fainter meteors.

Here’s some notes from the IAU, The International Astronomical Union:

LEONID METEORS 2014

S. Nakano, Sumoto, Japan; and D. Asher, Armagh Observatory, write that it will be scientifically interesting to see if two enhanced streams of Leonid meteors can be detected — both predicted to be at low levels if observable — around Nov. 17.06-17.07 UT (due to material ejected from comet 55P in 1833 and seen in 1867, predicted by Nakano and Y. Kosai) and Nov. 21.3-21.4 (material from 1567, predicted by M. Maslov and J. Vaubaillon). The main stream of Leonid meteors is expected to peak around Nov. 17.9 (with full-width at half-maximum of a couple of days, via Maslov).
(C) Copyright 2014 CBAT 2014 November 16 (CBET 4016) Daniel W. E. Green

Chance of seeing NORTHERN LIGHTS:

Aurora Nov 15 2014
Aurora seen from Wasa BC on Nov 15

The NOAA spaceweather site mentions there was a medium M3 solar flare on Nov 15, and predicts some Northern Light activity on Nov 15, dying down by the 17. So you may also see the Aurora to the North if you’re at higher latitudes. The photo below shows a red/green Aurora spike seen against the Big Dipper stars, with the Skookumchuck Pulp Mill amber lights illuminating a plume of steam drifting up from it’s stacks, glowing in the woodsmoke low behind the tree. Taken on Saturday night, Nov 15, from Wasa BC (in South-eastern BC).

Aurora
Aurora over Skookumchuck Nov 15

Like meteors, the aurora occurs in the upper atmosphere, where gas molecules are hit by electrons from the Sun. The lower edge at 80 to 100 km is where nitrogen atoms glow crimson; midway between 100 and 200km, oxygen gas glows green, and nitrogen glows blue; and above that from 100 to 250 km, oxygen gas glows a dim red.

The Spectrographs used by Ed Majden

Here is some of the spectral equipment in use at EMO.

F-24 Aero Camera lens cone with an f-2.9 – 8 inch f.l Pentac lens fitted with a 27 deg 45′ objective prism with a refractive index of 1.71 for the 589 nm line. This unit has been modified to accept a 4X5 inch 6 platen Graphmatic film holder.

 

Two Camseras

 

Two, 2-1/4 X 2-1/4 inch roll film type cameras mounted with objective transmission gratings behind a chopping shutter.  The grey Camera is a Bronica and the other is a Hasselblad. An automatic system using used Hasselblad EL/M motor driven cameras is being worked on.

 

Video intensifier

 

This is a video image intensifier spectrograph recording system using a 2nd generation 25 mm MCP Image intensifier and a Canon L2 Super 8 – 1/2 inch format video camera. Such a system will record spectra as faint as +3.0 magnitude where photographic systems using film with standard lenses are limited to meteors brighter than -2.0 magnitude. This unit is still under construction. I have recorded several video spectra of Perseids and Leonids with a prototype system. Copies have been sent to Peter Jenniskens at SETI/NASA for his meteor spectra archives. Hopefully they will eventually be measured. Since 9/11 it is unfortunately difficult to get U.S. built 2nd and 3rd generation intensifiers unless you are a U.S. resident.

 

VLF and Meteors Links

Please check out these links for a discussion of VLF signatures from meteors:

Beech M, Brown P & Jones J, VLF detection of fireballs, Earth Moon & Planets (Netherlands), 68 (1995) 181.

Beech M, & Foschini, L., Leonid Electrophonic Bursters, Astronomy and Astrophysics 367, (2001), 1056.

Beech M, & Foschini, L., A space charge model for electrophonic bursters, Astronomy and Astrophysics 345 (1999) L27

Rault, Jean-L., On the potential meteors ELF/VLF radiations Perseids 2009 campaign. (2010)

 

 

Sentinel III system in photos

The Camera and Housing


The housing for the camera, the anti-dew heater, the thermostat,  and fan are all housed inside a PVC tube and toilet flange. 
As packed for shipping. Stands approximately 0.5 meter tall.


Top shipping end removed reveals the camera and baffle.


Top Baffle


The Rainbow L163VDC4P fisheye lens mounted on the camera body. Note the PVC stiffener rods with coax cable running through it..


fisheye lens




Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

Student UFO2 User Guide

The Sonotaco.com site provides you with the latest capture and analysis software. The basic requirements are:

1) UFOCaptureV2 V2.22 to capture the data. Registration of this program is required after 30 days and the cost is 18900 Japanese Yen. Use this currency converter to determine the cost in your currency. You’ll also need the Users Manual. It is offered in an html and zipped format.

2) UFOAnalyzer V2 V2.28 to analyze the data. This is a free program. Provided in a pdf and zipped format, the Users Manual is essential to understanding this program. If you are a BC camera operator, download and install the Map of Canada (West) file. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to locate it. Extract the file to the UA2 root directory.

3) UFOOrbitV2 V2.25 to determine the meteor’s orbit. This is a free program. The Users Manual for this utility is offered in a pdf and zipped format.

The BBS Forum is also a good source of user information. You don’t need to speak or read Japanese 🙂

For those people that simply want to analyze the data, follow steps 2 and 3, and then do the following:

4) Download the contents of the UProfiles for UFO2 operators folder found in the Data Downloads/Video Data Downloads section and install the contents into the PROF folder of UA2.

5) To analyze individual captures, select a file found in the Data Downloads/Video Data Downloads section from any of the observatories using UFO2. At the moment, they are RASCPG, RDL, Shane, and Tatla. Download and extract the files into your directory. How you set up your directory is up to you. Use UA2 to analyze the data and plot a ground map.

6) To analyze common captures, you will download and analyze the files from Data Downloads/Video Data Downloads/Common Captures individually (don’t forget to select the profile for the site you are working with)…but you will perform one final step involving the use of Paint.NET. You will have saved the UA2 ground map from each site analysis. Using the Paint.NET tutorial, overlay the ground maps to determine the intersecting point.

7) When you have determined the intersecting point, email your results for confirmation to the administrator of this site. Your files will include the .XML and ground map files for each of the sites you worked with, as well as the overlay map from Paint.NET. Once your data is confirmed with other site users, it will be posted in the Video Results and Papers section and forwarded on to the Coordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre at the University of Calgary.

 

 

ABMO General Information

The Archambeau-Brower Memorial Observatory in West Kelowna

Lat 49.84695 N Long 119.55908 W

Welcome to the Archambeau-Brower Memorial Observatory located in West Kelowna. The observatory employs both a radio and video systems for the detection of meteors.

In addition to the meteor gear the observatory also has a Meade LX200, 0.254 meter Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope that operates in a robot mode.

To view the my radio page please click here.

To view the my video page please click here.

My live home weather station data can be found here.

Astronomy weather forecast for this observatory:

Current status at ABMO
Radio Detection is ON
Video Detection is armed for Sunset + 25 minutes to sunrise - 25 minutes
LX200 Robot is OFF
VLF is OFF