Many amateur photographers /astronomers would be very satisfied if they captured a picture of a meteor. Two Society members, Peter Campbell-Burns and Richard Kacerek, are just a tad more ambitious than that. They are co-ordinating a network of observers who have now recorded over 20,000 images of meteors, with about 4000 of these recorded in the first 6 months of this year. But don’t worry, this is not all done manually ! The images are the results from the UK Meteor Observing Network (UKMON) run by Peter and Richard which uses relatively simple photographic equipment linked to a computer which records each and every meteor which passes through its field of view.
The exciting part of the project comes when a meteor image has been captured at different locations. Comparing these images allows the path of the meteor through our atmosphere to be calculated and this, rather surprisingly, is enough for the full orbit to be calculated. They have produced, amongst many other successes, a striking composite image of the 2013 Perseid shower as it “rains down” on us – you can see why it is described as a shower – and another of the calculated orbital paths for those meteors, clearly and beautifully showing that they are from the same shower .
Our August meeting was an update on the project from Peter Campbell-Burns. The big improvement since last we heard is in the number of sites (now 18), their geographical spread (from Exeter to Cardiff to Scarborough) and, most importantly of all, the resulting increase in the number of meteors observed simultaneously from different sites. Links are being made with a similar group in France which will also improve the quality and quantity of useful data.
Now that the network is up and running, the next stage is to decide on a research focus with the aim of writing up a paper using the wealth of data they are accumulating. We’ll look forward to hearing how that is progressing.
For more details, go to the UKMON website
Talk given by FAS member Peter Campbell Burns
Post written by Katherine Rusbridge
Aug 2014