(meteorobs) Question to Cloudbait Observatory.

[Chris Peterson]

I know of no way to make such an estimate from a single station still image 
alone. It is possible if you are looking at a member of a known shower, and 
can start with a true radiant and velocity. But where you know neither, 
there are (literally) an infinite number of possibilities. The meteor in 
your image could have been traveling nearly straight towards your camera, or 
could have been nearly perpendicular to the camera's line of sight.

It is possible using the individual frames to construct a deceleration 
profile, which can narrow the possibilities somewhat, but for the most part, 
any serious analysis of a sporadic meteor requires data from at least two 
stations.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "stange" <stange34 at sbcglobal.net>
To: <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 12:09 AM
Subject: (meteorobs) Question to Cloudbait Observatory.


> Hello Chris.
>
> If you have time, could you just estimate the angle of descent on the 
> April
> 7th 0400 PDT Fireball based (only)on the accuracy of the scaled photo I 
> have
> up?
>
> http://www.geocities.com/stange34@sbcglobal.net/v20090407_035931scaled.JPG
>
> Using a planetarium program, I come up with a descent angle of appx. 51
> degrees for this fireball. I am wondering if this method could be used to
> approximate descent angle without any photograph from another station.
>
> Thank you in advance for considering this in your busy schedules.
> Larry
> YCSentinel