[meteorite-list] A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife'

From: Steve Dunklee <steve.dunklee_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2010 08:03:41 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <141360.21156.qm_at_web113907.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

In my life I have viewed only two meteors that made an obvious spiral as they fell. This is another case of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. The photo has to be examined on a pixel basis. If the CCD imager is one of the newer ones then it has a frame rate of 60 per second. And there should be pixel loss between each frame. The pixel loss should tell how many seconds the meteor was in the captured frame. From there the effects of gravity, atmospheric drag and velocity can can be plotted to give an aproximate mass. And distance calculations. The G forces involved can only be guessed at without knowing the actual distance or speed of the meteor. Personally I believe this meteor was traveling rather slowly as it fell and was shaped like a planer board dragged behind a boat. If it had an external battery power supply it would rule out most electromagnetic interference from high powered electrical equipment but not
 necessarily all interference.who knows? Steve


      
Received on Fri 04 Jun 2010 11:03:41 AM PDT