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(meteorobs) Home Made Realtime Fireball Surveilance Video Test Findings:

1.  The normal phone lines are too slow for uncompressed AVI files.  USWEST has failed to provide ISDN lines to my ISP and they have now ordered them from someone else.
2.  The two main browsers do not support automatic upload and display of AVI files.  I plan to call that to their attention after I have checked my web site again to make sure it is correct.
3. The Pentium computer and Snappy frame grabber kept up 2-3 frames per second, and the FTP upload worked well in background.  The Windows 3.1 macro recorder mouse recordings do not work on Windows 95.  Key only recordings to drive the uploads do work.
4.  The K-mart clock time display was too small to read and out of focus.  I have now removed a component that blocked half the display area.  The 0.8 f lens may not have the depth of field to do both sky and a time display.  Will test the focus again.
5.  The local time recording store did not return my phone call.  There does not seem to be any off the shelf LED clocks for sale that display seconds anymore.  I found an old digital readout clock at Good Will store, but I will have to add some light to the seconds readout area.
6.  The Panasonic VCR recording quality was good, but the time display had too much extraneous stuff on it.  Only the recording TAC has seconds.
7.  The heat tape and clock provided a good light intensity reference.
8.  The only Leonid fireball that came through the overcast was low in the north-east (probably over Nebraska where the geese were complaining).
9.  The camera is too close to the 36 in. mirror so the above was out of the field of view.  The radius of curve of the 36 in. security mirror may be too big to get a whole sky image.
10.  1st magnitude stars were visible on the TV before the clouds came in, but are not obvious on the frame grabbed image.  I suspect the higher color resolution mode of the frame grabber must be used.
The test cloud bottum pictures are on my web site.  www.tde.com/~millerfe



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