(meteorobs) The Disintegrating Meteor

[Swift, Wesley]

All,

	I am somewhat concerned by the number of meteor "old hands" that
seem to find this interesting image an occasion to cry "Liar liar, Pants on
fire" rather than to use their imagination.  For myself, I prefer to believe
that Geir is accurate in his observation documentation and find it an
interesting puzzle.   

	Any photographer with five minutes experience with any SLR on tripod
fired remotely KNOWS that mirror flop is an extremely small effect: nowhere
near the size of the streak in the image.   Furthermore, anyone with
handheld star images knows that the effect is more like "worms" than "cigar
and smoke".  There are a lot of pixels in this image and the smoke is well
defined with several spiraling sub-trails.   Note the lack of any other star
trails in the image.  I would far sooner believe that this is a bit of
Photoshop work than to believe this is a jiggled star or aircraft image.

	Since he was setting up for lunar photography (hence the plate
scale) he must have been aimed E by NE at about 15 degrees elevation (the
moon at the specified time was up 10.72deg, Az 105.9deg).  If it was
reentering space junk then it would have come generally from the West, going
away from the camera and descending fairly steeply..  This would mean that
the lunar illuminated plume would begin ~4 seconds before the exposure, then
the shutter would open with the object at the right of the bright portion
going away and down to the left for the 2 second duration.   Reentering
boosters and other rockets usually have residual volatiles which can produce
a plume and trail.   This still doesn't rule out a grazing meteor from the
east, but I prefer the space junk idea at the moment.  Several folks in the
past have identified space debris reentries:  How about it?

Wes

============================================
        Wesley R. Swift, Jr
     Raytheon ITSS / Sverdrup MSFC Group
     Marshall Space Flight Center
     EV13, Bldg 4487, room C-151a
     Huntsville, Al 35812
     (256) 544-1392 Fax 544-0242
 
       Home:
      704 Dellwood Rd.
      Huntsville, Al 35802
      wesley.swift at comcast.net
        (256) 881-4438
===========================================


-----Original Message-----
From: meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org
[mailto:meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org] On Behalf Of geir oye
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:32 AM
To: meteorobs at meteorobs.org
Subject: (meteorobs) The Disintegrating Meteor

Hi,
 
My name is Geir Oye, and I am the observer/photographer of the well
discussed meteor I was fortunate to get into the telescopic field.
 
The method of observation is well elaborated on the webpage:
http://www.geocities.com/astrog2/explosion.htm
 
However, if you have further questions you are more than welcome to ask me,
I really appreciate the debate.
 
Sincerely,
Geir Oye
MSc in Space Studies

		
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