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Re: (meteorobs) Mystery Leonids photo ...please help
At 09:50 02/12/01 -0800, you wrote:
>OK, I've managed to figure out the star field. You are WAY off in
>identifying the radiant at the left edge of the photo.
Badly worded ...i should have said "outside the frame" ...but it is also to
the left(and slightly higher than i thought before).
>The four stars on the
>left edge of the image are the southern end of Corvus: alpha, beta, epsilon,
>and zeta. Crux is just right of center
Yes,that's correct ...sorry i find it difficult enough to navigate the
stars in the Northern hemisphere - stars in the Southern hemisphere are
totally alien to me!
>, with the Carina nebulousity
>prominent above it. Your object is bracketed by beta, gamma, and delta
>Chameleon, putting it very close to the south celestial pole. It is
>certainly not a Leonid.
>The background stars show no loss of brightness, so
>we can rule out an image diffused by high thin clouds. (There is definitely
>a cloud in the image, near mu and nu Centauri.) My guess is that this is a
>lens flare from a bright meteor outside the frame. It's too well-smoothed to
>be a direct image of a meteor.
Yeah,I'd definitely agree with that last statement,although i still think
there may be a possibility of it being diffusely scattered remnants
photographed after the event took place. Lens flare is a small possibility
- but the lens(Nikon 28 f2 AIS) was equipped with the appropriate hood,and
also has a reputation for resistance to flare(which i can vouch for). Dew
on the lens can also be ruled out as i was using lens heaters.
I have uploaded a further image,at higher resolution of the area in
question - note that small green specs extend all the way to the far left
hand side of the image(they are faint in this jpg version,but easily
visible in the original tiff file),which may or not be a useful clue. See
it here:
<http://www.btinternet.com/~l.stachowicz/pics/leo-2001/burst_closeup.jpg>
Thanks for your suggestions Chris
Leo
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