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(meteorobs) Sandia Workshop Report



July 5, 1996 

Sandia Workshop report

Greetings fellow meteor observers.  Here is a report I promised some weeks
back.


I attended a meteor/bolide impact workshop at Sandia Labs in Albuquerque on
June 4 and 5. The workshop lasted till the 7th but I was unable to attend
the final two days due to work constraints. 

It was an interesting assemblage of folks including meteor observers,
satellite network monitors, two dust specialists, some Russian impact
physicists, a comet discoverer, fireball specialists, an infrasound
detection specialst, an applied optics specialist, asteroidal defense
thinkers, and one amateur radio observer (me).

I hesitate writing at length because I don't know if the meeting was
"classified" or not. That was a little nebulous. Sandia is a national
defense lab.  So I won't mention names.  It seems that there is a subject
overlap between natural meteoritics and planetary defense.

Topics included asteroid deflection, bolide detection via satellite, a
meteorite recovery case in Quebec, SL9 dynamics, high altitude dust
collecting and lab work, bolide dynamics, Tunguska, false bolide events
(gas upwellings ?) and much more.

I gave a talk on my forward scatter radio work.  I must say that I felt
quite good there reporting on my home built fireball detector system
because I had captured an important fireball that was also received on
other government systems. This was the November 21, 1995, so-called
"Colorado Fireball." It was detected by a Department of Defense satellite,
on an infrasound system (I don't know if I can write about this system),
and my own radio array.  Interestingly enough, there was also a local
parking lot surveillance video that was played that shows the fireball
crossing the sky reflected in the windshield of a truck.  That was quite
neat in slow motion. There was even a sonic boom.  (Big Brother as meteor
observer!)

I demonstrated the forward scatter radio method and played an audio
recording of the event from my radio telescope which captured this fireball
on two antenna lobes. I was pleased because my fireball array proved quite
worthy in comparison with satellite systems. In fact, my telescope is
extremely sensitive. The satellite system has a -17 magnitude bolide
threshold and their data is a byproduct of defense surveillance.   On
November 21, I received a cluster of fireballs whereas the DoD only showed
one big one.  But their system is globe spanning whereas my territory only
spans all the Great Plains states, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin,  all
the way down to Texas---and all that area in between.

Anyway, it was interesting to have captured one large notable event and
correlate it on different systems. It is also possible that the JPL high
altitude dust collecting plane may have flown through the same vicinity a
short time after this event as well and if so that would be a remarkable
coincidence. I haven't heard dust results as yet.

(By the way, a meteorite of the event was never recovered though it was
searched for.)

I don't think there were proceedings published though there were numerous
handouts of individual's work. I believe the whole thing was under the
auspices of Sandia's "Comet Week II" event.

All in all it was a very fine experience for me and I am thankful for the
invitation. I could write on but will leave it here for now.

Best regards to all,
Tom Ashcraft
Radio Fireball Observatory
35^ 41' N 105^ 57' W
New Mexico, USA
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