@william-ward
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Registered: 10 years ago
Long time meteor observer interested in applying the latest technology to develop new observing capabilities. Captivated by meteors after I first observed the Geminids in 1980. Have dabbled in most things astronomical over the years. Have done quite a bit of solar observing. I find spectroscopy fascinating and have built several spectroscopes. I enjoy observing and imaging comets when they grace the sky, they are quite intriguing objects... and when all this astronomically sourced dust settles into our atmosphere... I've been observing NLC almost every year since 1986. (I believe) I was the first person in the UK to use "UFO capture" meteor detection software ~2006. Firstly by scanning VHS tapes then live observations with a PC. After many postings this generated the interest that has resulted in the large number of video observers and coordinated groups we have today. I was also the first person to use video spectroscopy to observe the evolution of the meteor head spectrum. I have also captured the highest resolution video meteor spectrum by a UK observer (possibly even globally...) at ~0.4nm/pix in 2020/2021. Worked at AAO and UKSTU after BSc(Hons) graduation (early 90's). After graduating with my PhD I worked for the NHS for 4 years right through the COVID pandemic, which was not much fun! I have now returned to academia, sort of, as the Technical Manager for the School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of the West of Scotland. I continue to develop my meteor observing systems (VAMOS, NOVEX, ASI, HIREMS and (currently 2023/2024) HIREMS II) and have captured even higher resolution spectra in 2022/2023, down to ~0.25nm/pix in the first order. After some 12 years of observing and over 1300 spectra I discovered that on the broadest of measures, there are only three principle types of meteoroid entering the Earths atmosphere. I put this discovery into a new classification scheme. This new scheme was described and published in The Astronomer, Sept 2023 and the Proceedings on the International Meteor Conference, Radu, 2023.
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