(meteorobs) Question on an interesting meteor -Enhanced Picture

[prospector at znet.com]

I've always considered the possibility that the spikes or jets I saw could
have been electrical discharges rather than physical paritcals. If so, then
the looping seen in Larry's larger meteor could be magnetic loops
highlighted by plasma. Just a thought. A timed photograph can take a single
bright event as if it were a photograph with a normal short exposure.

                                   Dave English
                              Oceanside, California
                               Ironleaves  Twitter


Quoting Ed Majden <epmajden at shaw.ca>:

> Pat:
> 	I believe the comments left by Chris Peterson and Dr. Jiri Borovicka
> are the correct ones.  A still image such as this one can be rather
> misleading.  It would have been better if this image was obtained by
> an image intensified video system.  You are only looking at the
> brightest parts of the train as film is not sensitive enough to
> capture the complete and fainter parts of the train.  You must
> remember that a Leonid meteoroid is entering at 72 km/sec so the
> change in altitude is considerable along the path.  It is too bad we
> do not know the actual duration of this meteor.  As Jiri pointed out,
> the trail is being distorted over 10s of seconds with winds changing
> direction at different altitudes.  You can't really see this in a
> still image.  Perhaps Peter Jennisken's NASA airborne mission team
> has video images taken during their airborne missions that would show
> what is taking place much better.
> Ed Majden
> Courtenay, B.C. Canada.
>
> On 9-Sep-09, at 5:10 AM, pat_branch wrote:
>
> > I deal with high altitude winds quite frequently and this is not a
> > wind blown train effect. There would be more dispersal, not
> > individual jetting off. There may be shears that can give you two
> > different directions in short order, but not the multiple
> > directions and reversals seen here. I still think it is more likely
> > trails of pieces breaking off or vaporizing of softer minerals when
> > heat reaches them.
> >
>
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