[meteorite-list] Astro Mikes meteor streak Photo

From: Richard Kowalski <damoclid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:45:20 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <487577.40920.qm_at_web33907.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

hey Dean,

When I had my amateur observatory in Florida, north of Tampa, I was on the approach path for TPA. I often had streaks like this visible in my images. When I first saw the image I thought "Aircraft. No question." Thanks for the link to his website. Now that I see more data I am convinced of it.

Using the Catalina Schmidt to survey for NEOs, I have often see both aircraft and meteors on our images. That telescope's field of view is approximately 3 degrees square, or larger than the chart that the image is overlain on. A larger FOV could have shown other nav lights, which are not visible in his image, even though you state they are visible here.

A true bolide would have saturated the entire frame.

As for cleaning his chip, either he does not flat field or for some reason he distributed an image that was not flattened. Notice the vignetting around the edges of the frame. That's a result of not flat fielding your images. Since he doesn't flat field his images, I have to question his capabilities as an astro-photographer. Flat fielding is a very basic step when using digital cameras.

While I have some quibbles with your email, I agree with you that there is absolutely no doubt that it is an aircraft passing through his field. Meteorite hunters should immediately remove this image from their data set or they risk wasting a lot of time, effort and money trying to track down fragments.

Hopefully S&T won't run the image as it will be a bit of an embarrassment if they do.

--
Richard Kowalski
kowalski at lpl.arizona.edu
Catalina Sky Survey
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ  85721
      

Received on Sat 11 Jul 2009 07:45:20 PM PDT