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Re: (meteorobs) Sporadic Flux Variations (long)



In <9609241708.AA29903@zauber>, on 09/24/96 
   at 01:08 PM, Lew Gramer <dedalus@latradedot com> said:

>By the way, your post brought up yet another interesting question: why
>isn't  two-station telescopic meteor plotting (at least theoretically)
>feasible? This  question of course from a total telescopic newbie! But
>then this list IS for  questions at all levels... :)

It is theoretically feasible, IMHO.

>Seems that the increased plotting accuracy which telescopic observing
>provides,  coupled with very careful relative positioning of observers,
>could provide  sufficient baseline accuracy for orbit determinations.
>The first problem that  comes to mind of course is getting accurate
>apparent-velocity estimates from  visual telescopic observers. But
>surely there's some way of doing this?

I don't think that apparent velocity need be considered.  If you plot
against celestial co-ordinates, like on a starmap, you will get a line
as will your other observer.  The time that the event was observered
should be as accurate as possible to simplify correlation later.

Assuming for the moment that in most cases this line can be approximated
as a straight line without introducing significant error,  the location
of your eyes and the line have just defined a plane as will your other
observer define a different plane.  If the planes are not parallel, they
will intersect defining a straight line.  This straight line is
essentially tangent to the orbit of the object, and from that you can
deduce whether or not it could be associated with a specific radiant.

As a cross check, you can do a co-ordinate transformation to alt-az
since you accurately know the time of the event.  Using this data, I
think you can determine the height of the meteor when first observed,
and thus you have a sanity check.

Of course, this will never be as accurate as photography nor can we
completely reconstruct the orbital elements, but if we can deduce the
radiant, maybe that's a whole lot better than nothing, I hope.

>It would be easier and cheaper than two-station photography...

In fact, potentially a whole lot better than 0ne station photography :-)

More comments please!


Regards,

John Ohrt

johrt@cablereginadot com

Regina * Saskatchewan * Canada
---------------------------


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