{"id":101,"date":"2017-07-30T22:39:56","date_gmt":"2017-07-30T22:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/wp\/?page_id=101"},"modified":"2017-07-30T23:17:59","modified_gmt":"2017-07-30T23:17:59","slug":"a-brief-history-of-the-b-c-fireball-network","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/?page_id=101","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of the B.C. Fireball Network"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At this time I was involved in meteor spectroscopy and had posted many messages on this on various web sites, mostly on meteorobs trying to get people interested in meteor spectroscopy.\u00a0 To my surprise I received an e-mail from Richard Spalding at Sandia, asking if I would be interested in operating an All-sky Video Detection Camera to record fireballs.\u00a0 I immediately told Jeremy Tatum about this offer and he contacted Richard to get more details on this.\u00a0 Shortly after that, four all-sky cameras were delivered to us\u00a0 One was set up at University of Victoria, operated by David Balam, a research associate at UVic, another was sent to William Weller a professor at Malaspina University College (now Vancouver Island University) in Nanaimo, the other to me in Courtenay, and the fourth unit was set up in Woodinville Wa operated by Ajai Sehgal.\u00a0 Mike Hale joined our group as he had built his own all-sky camera which was located on Gabriola Island.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a clip from the Times Colonist paper Wednesday 3 June 1998.\u00a0 This is the first official announcement of the B.C. Network which of course included Ajai&#8217;s site in Woodinville Wa.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/images\/stories\/ed\/edshist1_small.jpg\" alt=\"Small Newspaper article\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here is our first success recording a mutual fireball event:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/images\/stories\/ed\/edhist2.jpg\" alt=\"First capture1\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/images\/stories\/ed\/edhist3.jpg\" alt=\"Capture3\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>David Balam did the analysis using IRAF software.<\/p>\n<p>The original camera used a silvered convex mirror which had its own problems.\u00a0 Accurate elevation of the start and end point of a fireball was difficult to arrive at as angles are compressed as you get closer to the horizon.\u00a0 Also, few background stars that would be useful as calibration reference points were difficult to obtain. A program was written by a fellow at the University of Alberta to help with this but it was not used by us.\u00a0 Sandia later distributed fisheye all-sky cameras which eliminated the geometry problems of the convex but they also lack detection of background stars for calibration reference points.\u00a0 This is being worked on by stacking images to bring out reference stars.\u00a0 Ken Tapping and Jeff Brower are working on calibrating their cameras and once this is successful this will be done for other camera sites.\u00a0 The B.C. All-sky Network has expanded to various sites on the mainland greatly increasing coverage and usefulness of the network.\u00a0 This is a work in progress.\u00a0 When Jeremy Tatum retired he asked me to be the unofficial co-ordinator of the B.C. Network and I have done this as best I can.\u00a0 Others have since taken over this responsibility\u00a0 as they have the mathematical and computing skills that I don&#8217;t possess.<\/p>\n<p>Ed Majden<br \/>\nCourtenay B.C. Station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At this time I was involved in meteor spectroscopy and had posted many messages on this on various web sites, mostly on meteorobs trying to get people interested in meteor spectroscopy.\u00a0 To my surprise I received an e-mail from Richard Spalding at Sandia, asking if I would be interested in operating an All-sky Video Detection &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/?page_id=101\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A Brief History of the B.C. Fireball Network&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-101","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102,"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101\/revisions\/102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcmeteors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}