(meteorobs) Question on an interesting meteor -Enhanced Picture

[Chris Peterson]

The image was made on Oct 21, 2008. If the camera's clock was set correctly, 
the time was 05:26, which is certainly very plausible for this particular 
shower. Can this help much? I haven't found anything to suggest that 
mesospheric wind speed and direction are monitored in any systematic way, 
like lower altitude conditions are.

Point taken about the apparent angle of the debris. However, I went back and 
carefully measured the flare lengths, and the longest is 2.2°. So given the 
assumed height of 35 km, and assuming a typical angle of 45°, we're still at 
a physical length of 4 km, which remains consistent with winds in the range 
of 30 m/s.

While I agree the effect is odd, I don't know of an easy way to compare it 
to what is normally observed in a rocket launch. In the image, we are seeing 
an (up to) two-minute smear; in all the rocket launch images I've seen, and 
similarly in those I've witnessed myself, we see a single snapshot of the 
trail, not a time exposure. Also, this is on a different scale. When we see 
rocket launch trails or the sort of persistent meteor trails that last many 
minutes (and are bright enough to be visible to the eye), we see structure 
that extends over many tens of kilometers. This is much less than that.

Chris

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


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "pat_branch" <pat_branch at yahoo.com>
To: "Global Meteor Observing Forum" <meteorobs at meteorobs.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Question on an interesting meteor -Enhanced Picture


Well I doubt I will ever be convinced this is wind blown train and I am sure 
others could never be convinced it isn't, but it is fun and educational to 
debate it. Some comments to this calculation. Winds of 50m/s are rare in the 
mid latitudes and most calculations I know limit our concern to speeds of 
about 30m/s. The lenght of the debris trail assumes you measure 
perpendicular to the trail, but most of those are likely at some angle into 
or out of the image so they could be considerable longer. 100km seems high, 
but lowering that also changes the calculations to lower numbers. It does 
not seem possible that material or gas ejected from a meteor would leave a 4 
km long track either...so not sure what to think - maybe camera effects.

I have seen about 100 rocket trails passing thru the upper atmosphere. I 
have seen some great and interesting patterns, but nothing that even 
remotely resembles that picture. You do not get sharp edges and pointed 
ends. I have seen loops created, but not sharp points in at least 4 
different directions, without the rest of the train being effected? If this 
was taken over a long period of time then the winds were very mild and 
constant that day.
It would be interesting to contact the photog and find out exactly when and 
where it was taken and how long it was.