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Hi Bill,
Spectacular!
I replied last night that I was sitting under cloud, unfortunately. I’ve sent an e-mail to the NEMETODE group, so fingers crossed that at least one of the meteor video cameras covering Scotland will have recorded it.
Cheers,
Alex.
Clicking on ‘BAA Journal now available on line’ in the recent Newsletter takes you to the October Journal, and as you’ve remarked, it can now be accessed via the BAA Home page, etc.
Alex.
Hi,
The link on the BAA Home webpage which leads to Publications – Journal still shows the August issue as being the most recent.
The October 2019 issue is in Downloads – Journal Archive. I guess this is because the PDF of the current Journal is intentionally only available to Members, although it’s usually located in Publications – Journal where the contents are restricted for non-Members.
I haven’t located the 2020 Handbook yet. I’m sure it will turn up in due course.
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi David,
Several years ago the West Yorkshire Branch of the BCS organised a trip to Jodrell Bank which included a behind-the-scenes ICT guided tour by Ian Morison. He is a skilled presenter and educator and it was a great experience. I’m sure everyone attending his seminar will really enjoy it.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Thanks Andy, we’ll be in touch if any of the speakers give permission for their PDFs to be made available in that Members Download area.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Hi Dominic, Nick,
After each ESOP we ask the speakers for their permission to add the PDFs of their talks to the Symposium website. For the reasons you mentioned not all are able to do this and we fully respect their wishes. At Armagh Prof. Mark Bailey set the ball rolling by offering his PDF before he started his presentation.
Such contributions are a great resource for members, whether they attended the meeting or not.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Hi Nick,
Prof. Mark Bailey offered the PDF of his fine talk. It would be great if this, and those of the other speakers, could be made available on the BAA website.
Thanks,
Alex.
Hi Mike,
I fully agree with your comments. It was a great weekend, I really enjoyed the programme of talks and being able to meet up again with your good self and many other friends from all across these Misty Isles. As well as the quality talks we spent hours discussing our common interests in meteors, comets, occultations, eclipse trips, etc. This generated several ideas for cooperative projects in the months to come.
Thanks also to the staff of Armagh Planetarium and to Tolis for a private tour of the Observatory on the Friday afternoon because I had to leave early on the Sunday.
Clear skies,
Alex.
You’re resolving some fine details there Bill.
Fingers crossed for some mutual events tonight – but this weather system is spoiling the show.
Cheers,
Alex.
Nice one, Bill !
My cameras were clouded out last night after midnight so unfortunately I can’t contribute any data for this one. The perils of our long baseline. Looking forward to seeing your detailed spectrum after processing.
Weather prospects here look better for tonight.
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi Bill,
Fingers crossed that you get some spectra this month. As per usual, let me know and I’ll check my N camera for any matching events.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Hi Bill,
I’m looking forward to seeing your hi-res meteor spectra with your new setup.
UFO Analyser should be able to extract astrometry and radiant data from your HD-quality videos but I don’t know how reliable the velocity measurements would be if the frame rate is variable.
A standard definition meteor video camera such as the Mintron or Watec has an internal clock that pumps out 25 PAL frames/second (50 fields/second) at a very reliable frame rate. Most old legacy PCs can cope with this bandwidth and are ideal for running UFO Capture.
When using a webcam or other imaging camera – especially at higher resolutions than PAL 720×576 – the PC has to be able to handle the data steam from the camera, which might not have a reliable and fixed transfer rate and the files can be big.
For HD-quality work SonotaCo recommend DSLR cameras that can deliver HD 1920×1080 video streams at fixed rates of 50 or 60 frames/second. This requires a beefy PC to cope with the demands on its data bandwidth and storage capacity. The cameras can overheat if they are left running for several hours.
All this is relevant for meteor velocity work, but isn’t important for your quality spectra.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Many thanks Nick. This is a most valuable service.
It was a great meeting with a full programme of quality talks. I’ve downloaded the videos and will enjoy reliving the event whilst I wait for the monsoon season to abate.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Hi Alan,
My dew shields are constructed from sheets of artists’ black card from The Works arts and crafts supplies.
Clear skies,
Alex.
Hi Bill,
You were correct in surmising that it was a fast meteor!
It was also recorded by Mike Foylan (Rathmolyon, Ireland) and Nick James (Chelmsford – a very long baseline to Scotland). Combining my data with Mike’s we get the attached ground track and radiant plot.
It was a speedy meteor with a geocentric velocity of almost 60 km/s, detected at an altitude of 111 km and descended to 87 km . It’s absolute magnitude was -3.5 so it would have been a spectacular sight over the Firth of Forth.
2-station analysis classifies it as a sporadic meteor, although the plot shows it originating near the gamma Bootid radiant, not far from Arcturus.
Cheers,
Alex.
Hi Bill,
We’d have to see if the meteor velocity data could be used for orbital work, but it’s certainly an improvement in resolution for radiant work – and of course spectroscopy.
If it could be binned 2×2 it would still deliver more pixels than our standard PAL and NTSC formats. Good luck with the tests.
Alex.
Hi Bill,
Getting better and better spectra…!
I captured the meteor on my Leeds_N camera and single-station analysis classified it as a gamma Bootid of apparent mag -0.5.
I’ve contacted the NEMETODE team to see if anyone else recorded it, then we can derive a multi-station solution.
Clear skies,
Alex.
