(meteorobs) Quadrantids Pictures and Videos

[Mike Hankey]

Chris,

Thanks for the info. I know this camera is not as good as some DIY
alternatives, but I struggled for most of 2011 trying to get my own
camera built and I did a really crappy job of it.

After a few months of learning and trying and building etc, I got a
pretty basic prototype put together and mounted. I was never able to
get very many stars to show up in the images (hardly any) and the
watec camera died after about 2 months of operation. I think this was
due to the dusk to dawn switch failing and then the camera got zapped.

After going to the NASA all sky camera conference last summer, and
seeing how nicely the ASGARD cameras were put together, I became
discouraged with my personal DIY camera project.

So I bought this orion camera out of desperation / as a stop gap,
because I was getting frustrated by all the fireballs i was missing. I
know its not the best, but I at least want to get something going so
we can have a fireball trap in MD.

Long term, I really want to get a stable/extensible/scalable all sky
camera solution going so we can start building out the AMS all sky
network. I'm not a very good engineer / not good with tools so I need
some help with getting the hardware. Its unfortunate that there are no
viable commercial all sky options on the market.

Nice meteor captures btw!

Thanks,

Mike

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:30 AM, Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Hi Mike-
>
> That camera is about 1/10 as sensitive to meteors as a Watec, Mintron,
> or Supercircuits B&W camera with a Rainbow lens, and from what I've seen
> playing with handyavi, the software misses a lot of events that would be
> caught by programs designed specifically for meteor detection, and not
> just motion capture.
>
> I had 70 meteors (68 Quadrantids) on my setup the morning of Jan 4,
> http://www.cloudbait.com/science/quadrantid2012.html, under very dark
> skies. So I'd expect your camera to have only caught a handful, which is
> consistent with your catching none at all given that you're still trying
> to figure out the software. I'm assuming you weren't capturing the
> signal in an integration mode, where frames are combined to simulate
> longer exposures. That will really knock down your sensitivity to
> meteors- for the same reason that DSLRs are fairly insensitive to them.
> The ideal exposure time to catch meteors is right around 1/30 second-
> much longer, and sky background fogs the path.
>
> The Orion product isn't really a meteor camera, but rather a fireball
> camera, and at least for me, this shower didn't produce as many bright
> events as many other showers. That's been my experience with the
> Quadrantids in general- it seems to produce meteors of somewhat uniform
> brightness.
>
> Chris
>
>
> *******************************
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatory
> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
> On 1/5/2012 7:23 AM, Mike Hankey wrote:
>> Jim,
>>
>> Its orion's commercial allsky camera.
>>
>> http://www.telescope.com/Astrophotography/Astrophotography-Cameras/Orion-StarShoot-AllSky-Camera/c/4/sc/58/p/100319.uts
>>
>> its a little expensive,  but a pretty nice package / setup overall. It
>> uses handyavi software. I'm still working through a few operational
>> issues with the software.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Mike
>>
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