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(meteorobs) CR events
Andrew, et al.,
I've had a chance to dredge up some more of my old CCD photometry skills...
We used to take what are called "dark frames" in which we would leave the
CCD's shutter closed. We used these frames to help calibrate the response
of each pixel across the CCD chip. Since CR events came from energetic
particles and not light, they occurred on the dark frames as well as on the
"light frames." So...
You can actually look for CR event signatures on your CCD images without
using any observing time. Set up the equipment as if you were about to
image meteors, but do it during a cloudy night. Power it all up just as if
you were going to observe, but leave the shutter closed. Now take some
data. If these are CR events that we are talking about, some should appear
on these dark frames.
Matthew
PS. The reason you would want to set it up at night instead of during the
day is that you want to replicate the observing conditions as closely as
possible when you take your dark frames. During the day, you may have
sunshine on the equipment, so the thermal environment would be different
than actual observing conditions.
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