(meteorobs) New Observer

[Leo S]

Hi Jackob,

Regarding the DSLR side of things, I've been working on something that 
might be of interest to you. It's actually designed to trigger the 
camera so as to catch lightning, but I think it could work for bright 
meteors too. I have yet to test it in the field even with lightning, but 
I might try hooking it up to a 20D during the Geminids peak.

I used the design found here to build it: 
http://www.glacialwanderer.com/hobbyrobotics/?p=16

It uses a photo-sensitive diode coupled to a tiny computer (an 'Arduino' 
- see: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows ) running software which 
the author of the above web page wrote to trigger the camera. It's 
relatively easy and inexpensive to build. Similar triggers designed for 
the same purpose can cost over $300, where as it cost me perhaps £45 to 
build mine. There is also potential to use the Arduino to do lots of 
other interesting things, not necassarily connected with photography, 
but it naturally lends itself to triggering cameras.

Here's a photo of the one I built: 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21035814@N07/2882929826/sizes/o/

It's surprisingly sensitive, but as I said before, I have yet to test it 
under field conditions.

Clear skies,
Leo


jackob strikis wrote:
> Hello all.
>
> My name is Iakovos Marios & I live in Greece (Athens). The last five years I've been an observer of Planets (Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn) & Sun. In the past few months I started to be interesting in "Meteor Observing". 
>
> For that reason I have setup 2 Canon DSLR Cameras with 17mm f/3.5 lens looking out for meteors all night... Every night passing the camera's recording about 1-3 meteors...
>
> I wonder if there is any cheap and easy way to record (photography-video-radio) meteors without having to take about 9.000 pictures every night (it is bad for the shutters of my cameras, my computer having all those Gb every morning, and I personaly do not have all that time to chek all those pictures).
>
> I will be glad to hear any propositions about equipement and observing programms & make observations usefull to those interesting in the Meteor section.
>
> Clear Skyes & Lot of Fireballs
> J.D.Strikis
>
>
>
>       
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