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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Arietids
Title: Re: (meteorobs) Re: Arietids
on 6/6/02 6:34 AM, Matthew Collier/cis/evp/Okstate at mwc@okstatedot edu wrote:
A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to observe some daylight meteors...and I got to thinking. Thinking can be dangerous for me. I decided that if I could increase the contrast between the optical output of the meteor and the background sky that I would have a better chance of seeing one. Orange is the complement to blue, right? So I figured if I were looking through an orange photographic filter, the sky would appear darker and I might get a signal to noise increase on the meteor. Well, I bought my filter at a camera store, and inserted it into a small aperture I had cut in a cardboard box (about 35cm on each side). The box formed a "dark room" to keep glare out of my eyes. Of course, there was lots of glare from the bottom of the box (through which one put one's head). So I bought some dark cloth and taped it on like a cloak. Okay, you should be laughing by now. While wearing it I looked like some monocular creature from the old series, "Dr. Who." I tested it for about 30 minutes one early June morning while reclining at the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. I wish I had a picture...
Actually, something like this might be of some use for the Leonids this November. Scattered moonlight is the same color as scattered sunlight. However, orange isn’t the right color. You want red. The scattering of light in the atmosphere is stronger at the blue end, and weaker at the red end, so the overall result looks bluish.
BTW, this also suggests that red-sensitive CCDs will do better than expected with the Leonids.
Chris
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