(meteorobs) Fw: Disintegrating meteor photos

[Ed Majden]

on 3/6/05 6:30, GeoZay at aol.com at GeoZay at aol.com wrote:

> 
> lunsford>>Gary and I received the following message. I invite you  to visit
> the web 
> site below and then posting your  thoughts.<<
> 
> 
> I don't know what it is, but it doesn't look like a meteor to me. The
> "train" doesn't have the snake look to it, especially with just a two second
> exposure. It looks more like cigarette smoke or something similar.
> George Zay
> 
    I agree with George in this case.  It does look like the end of a
cigarette butt complete with smoke.  I have recorded several zero order
meteor images with a video image intensified spectrograph and none have this
appearance.  For a smoke trail to have this appearance it would have been
subject to high altitude winds which would take time to do this, not the two
seconds claimed in this exposure.  I'm sure Sirko Molau and his video meteor
group can verify this.

Ed Majden