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Hi,
With a settled spell of weather forecast for over the Easter weekend I decided to have a serious go a catching one or more Lyrid spectra.
Using two watec cameras and trying various gratings I ended up with 6 spectra, 3 were very faint and unusable, 2 were of sporadic fireballs (interesting in their own right!) and by good fortune 1 Lyrid!
I’m not sure if any other Lyrid spectra exist as it’s mostly the big showers (Perseids, Leonids and Geminids) that get most attention from meteor spectroscopists so this might be unique or at least pretty rare!
The meteor is the line to the left hand side. The spectrum is unfortunately incomplete but shows lots of lines from metal elements such as calcium and magnesium in the blue end of the spectrum. The spectrum extends from around 370nm to 530nm
cheers,
Bill.
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Good to see you progressing this pioneering work on meteor video spectroscopy, Bill. The Lyrids can be pretty sparse, so you did well to capture the spectrum of one.
Go well!
Jeremy
Hi,
When is a Lyrid not a Lyrid? when you discover you actually caught it on another camera and it doesn’t go through the radiant!
A salutory reminder of the perils of visual observing, even with bright (this was -2/-3) meteors great care must be taken. Looks like this is a rather unique (spectrally) sporadic.
So no Lyrids after all. A total of 43hours 10 mins (times two for two cameras + some CCD time), oh well roll on the Eta Aquarids….
cheers,
Bill.
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