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Re: (meteorobs) Sirko's WGN article
Jeff, I was wondering, How does the Gamma Ray Detector differentiate
between meteors and the light emitted by incoming gamma ray colissions?
Velocity? Duration? Luminance? Spectrum?
Just curious,
Wayne
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Original Text
From: Jeff Lashley <meteor@meteordot demon.codot uk>, on 1/15/97 11:20 PM:
To: <meteorobs@latrade.com>
In message <v02130500af014451e09d@[149.8.42.30]>, Pete Gural
<pgural@trg1.saic.com> writes
>By the way I would be reluctant to say that we are throwing data away
since
>we cannot process the numerous video detections we have. Instead I would
>pose it as a challenge to find more automated ways to post process the
>detected events! I know it is a hard problem, but lets get people
thinking
>about it, someone out there may have an idea. I know I have some thoughts
>on it.
>
>pete gural
>pgural@trg1.saic.com
>
>
A recent talk I heard at our Astronomical Society was by a Gamma Ray
astronomer from Durham University, who uses banks of photomultipliers
to detect faint light flashes caused when Gamma Rays hit the Earths
upper atmosphere.
This made me think that a simple set up of one photomultiplier attached
to a camera lens similar to that used for meteor photography could be
employed in parallel with a meteor camera. If a computer was used to
identify the signal 'spikes' caused by meteors - it could be used as a
timimg device for automated meteor cameras. My main thought was to use
this with film cameras, but equally could be employed with video cameras
so you could then fast forward to the section of tape containing a
meteor.
A photomultiplier could do automatic rate counts as a stand alone unit.
The way the Gamma Ray astronomers work is in fact to use 3 detectors
looking at the same region, only if all three give similar responses are
they considered true. This eliminates noise from the electronics.
Senisitivity can also be adjusted to reduce noise - after all visible
meteors are a lot brighter than the effects of Gamma Rays.
--
Jeff Lashley
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