(meteorobs) meteorobs Digest, Vol 6, Issue 14

[Chris Peterson]

Yes, it's just a coincidence that one of the streaks is positioned as it 
is with respect to the Moon.

Cosmic rays can come from any direction with respect to the plane of the 
detector. They often don't hit the detector, but hit something else 
first, which produces a particle cascade and multiple simultaneous hot 
pixels or hot pixel groups- just what we see here.

Certainly, cosmic rays do hit molecules higher up, and produce light, 
which can be detected (there are instruments just for this purpose). But 
that's not what we are seeing here. The three groups of pixels involved 
look like they have been directly stimulated, not like they are imaging 
anything in the sky. And in any case, the amount of light produced would 
not be recorded by a camera like this. Instruments for recording 
secondary photons from cosmic rays use photomultipliers, and are a few 
orders of magnitude more sensitive than video cameras.

Chris

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

On 11/20/2011 11:23 PM, Stuart Saunders wrote:
>>
>> "The trace near the Moon is too long to appear on a single frame if it
>> were meteoric in origin, and that doesn't explain the synchronous flashes
>> elsewhere in the frame"
>>
>> Also, why does it appear to radiate from the moon?  - coincidence?
>
>
>
>> If it were a cosmic ray striking CCD, it would hit a most one -  two
>> pixels, as detector is presumably almost square to the moon.
>
>
>
>> Or, is the cosmic ray hitting atmosphere, causing a light flash which
>> would therefore having 'length', being picked up by the CCD?
>
>
> What is the almost colinear, simultaneous flash be at lower middle?
>
> (Not doubting cosmic ray hypothesis, just looking for a consistent
> explanation)
>