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Re: (meteorobs) Daylight Leonid Meteor Strom



Perhaps I've missed the point here, but why would anyone use a fast film
in daylight.  With 100 ISO film at f3.5, the daylight sky here gives a
1/500 sec exposure.  This is much faster than necessary to freeze a
fireball.  The slower films will give a much improved grain.  There is
probably no need to have any depth of field either, so closing the lens
down from full aperture would only be required if the image quality is
poor at full aperture.  At f2.0 you could easily use 25 ISO film without
any blurring of the fireball or handshake.

Probably the biggest question is whether anyone could reach to a short
duration fireball.  Here in Australia, if the peak occurs after about
19hUT this year, the radiant will be reasonably high just after sunrise.
However the Leonid durations will probably be so short that reacting by
moving the camera and taking a picture will be of questionable success.
In the USA, with the Leonid radiant low in the west at the expected time
of maximum, the durations of fireballs will be longer giving a better
chance of success.

Use of an automatic exposure camera makes life easy.

But I have to agree with Jiri that the best technique would be a video
camera running continuously.

Cheers, Rob

Robert H. McNaught
rmn@aaocbn.aaodot gov.au


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