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(meteorobs) Telescopic observation of meteor trails
After reading to Lew's comments on meteor trails I thought the following
might be of interest.
I have seen a few meteors as they accidentally cross the field of view of my
20" F4.4 Dobsonian reflector usually being used with a 12 mm widefield
Nagler eyepiece (total magnification X180). Several of the brighter ones (
probably about mags in the 4,5,6or 7 sort of range but I am not sure) left
short lived trails around 1 minute of arc or so across, from just behind the
meteor. The trails were orange in colour and seemed to puff outward as
though a sausage skin was being inflated by luminous gas. The time
resolution of the eye is of course limited but the impression was of fast
but visible expansion to a definite diameter (hence the sausage skin
analogy). The expansion gave the impession of starting from a point a litle
behind the actual meteor but again this was only an impression. The trains I
have seen so far faded within a few seconds so I can't comment on their
further progress.
It would be interesting to hear of anyone elses telescopic observations of
meteor trails.
Nick
Nick Martin, Bonnyton House, By Ayr, Ayrshire KA6 7EW ,Scotland, UK.
Latitude 55 24'56" Longtitude 4 26' 00".
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