(meteorobs) Fw: Disintegrating meteor photos

[GeoZay at aol.com]

Bjorn>>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.<<
 
It definitely doesn't quack like a duck. Last night I've been mulling  this 
over in my head some more with the assumption that it was a meteor and  it's 
train. In order for me to be close in making it "quack" is that I'd have  to 
speed up the exposure time from 2 seconds to about half a second. In doing  so, 
I'd also have to assume that both ends of the meteor were cut off by  camera 
shutter action. That is, the meteor was already in the cameras field  before the 
shutter opened and then closed before the meteor ended. This would  account 
for no tapering on either end. It would also allow time for the train  to move 
to it's photographed position without extensive blurring. That's  because most 
of the motion was done before the shutter was opened. With a  shorter shutter 
speed however, I think I run into the problem of not having  enough exposure 
time to photograph the train. But if I'm mistaken and there  were enough time 
to photograph the train, I'm bewildered that it doesn't have  the look of a 
nematode. Instead it looks like a train that might have evolved  several seconds 
later. During my meteor watching days, there's been a number  of occasions 
that I seen a relatively dim meteor appear in my binoculars view.  The train 
twists quite fast, but in the time frame of a half second it has the  remnant 
looks of a nematode before completely dissipating. Another  problem comes to 
mind...what forms a train? It's primarily ionization of the  air molecules within 
the path of the meteor itself. Immediately after the  meteor passes, the train 
will have the appearance of a tube and it will be at  it's brightest to be 
photographed. There should be some remnant of  this ionized tube before 
capturing any of the dimmer and twisted looking  train we have here.  Immediately 
behind the meteor there is no hint of a  tube like structure that was laid down 
before the shutter opened. It  appears like smoke or heat turbulence coming from 
the meteors sides at the  very back, but no tube. I'm sorry, I still can't 
make this duck quack in my  head.
George  Zay