[meteorite-list] A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife

From: Fred Bieler <fcb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2010 17:46:34 -0500
Message-ID: <000801cb02a5$7412f550$5c38dff0$_at_com>

The stars in the image look comatic, probably due to lens aberrations in the
presumably wide open aperture. Look at the star images in all corners of the
image. Their side to side blur is clearly a comatic fan tangential to the
radius in the corners. Look particularly at the bright stars to the lower
right side of the tower in the upper right side of the image. Blow the image
up as much as possible and you can clearly see the curved fan of coma aiming
at the center of the field. Stars at the lower left corner have the comatic
fan curved in the opposite direction, but again pointing at the center of
the field. The side to side comatic blurs do not all parallel the side to
side wiggle in the meteor trail, making tripod shake much less probable.

Fred Bieler
Astronomics/Christophers, Ltd./Cloudy Nights
www.astronomics.com
800.422.7876
Received on Wed 02 Jun 2010 06:46:34 PM PDT