(meteorobs) Fw: Disintegrating meteor photos

[Bjørn Sørheim]

Link to images is at:
http://www.geocities.com/astrog2/explosion.htm
 
In a mail to the photographer -Geir Øye - posted by Geir to the Norwegian astronomical society list - Jack Drummond confirms that with 99.9% certainty is a meteor and further :' This is the only image in world history that shows an incoming meteor through a telescope exploding and at the same time leaving the trail in the same image'. He was allowed to quote this by Dr. Drummond and added: 'the image bears further study to eliminate other possibilities'. He added also: 'But scientists can never say something 100%'. He was interested in adding the image to 'The small catalogue of meteor trails'.
 
 
Comenting myself on the image and to Ed and Georges messages:
I can agree on one thing: It doesn't look like an average meteor image.
Note that the field of view is only 1x0.75 degrees. So it's a blow up of what is taken by a 'normal' or wide field lens. So one might be in the position to see structures and processes that is invisible in a 'normal' meteor image.
 
One theory of what we see here: The possible meteor comes from the right. At the instant the shutter opens, the bright (arc) trail is at its left position. In 2 seconds it travels the bright (uneven) path to the left. As it doesn't move especially fast it must have been braked heavily by a preceeding incident.
The wispy smoke trail to the right was made in the preceeding few seconds. As can be seen it has a more or less cone shape. It has expanded more in the most distant (right) side, and tapers into the area of the bright trail. The expanding and twisting movement has almost stopped at the right, while must still be going on at the left. A small piece seems to be falling down where the bright arc starts.
The reason why the bright part (the arc) is not tapered at the ends is that it is shut off by the camera shutter - simply. It probably had come from the right and continued further to the left,
but the camera never picked up this. The reason why the path is curved could be because of low speed of the main mass and a rapid rotation around itself, like a spinning top making an unpredictable path.  
 
Well that's one theory about it, at least...! 
 
Bjørn Sørheim



Ed Majden <epmajden at shaw.ca> wrote:
Hello Bjorn:
Do you still have the url as I have deleted it? I would like to see
Jack Drummond's reason as to why he thinks this is a disintegrating meteor
photo. I'm an amateur meteor spectroscopist so don't have Jack's background
in physics. I have however seen many video recorded meteor tracks and none
of them resemble this photo. A meteor can have a persistent train often
caused by the forbidden line of O I at 557.7 nm in fast meteors. This can
last over 1 second. Other persistent trails can be caused by other things
but they would not show up as wisps of smoke behind the meteor. Very bright
meteors sometimes leave a long duration persistent train and these are often
distorted by high altitude winds over a period of time. Certainly not after
2 second which I think is the duration of this photograph. The bright video
meteors I have recorded often have a tear drop appearance with the trail
behind the head. The train can be persistent (a second or more in duration)
but certainly not wispy like the smoke in this photo. I do think this photo
was caused by something else but I have an open mind, so a better
explanation could prove me wrong. I wonder what Jiri Borovicka, Robert
Hawkes or Rob McNaught and other professional meteor scientists think of
this photo???

Ed Majden


		
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